


Loving You Isn't the Right Thing to Do

by bareunloveliness



Category: Frühlings Erwachen | Spring Awakening - Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening - Anya Reiss, Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Angst, Anya Reiss, Asian Melitta, Asian thea, Black Martha, Bobby Mahler hes the worst, Child Abuse, DWSA - Freeform, Deaf Ernst Robel, Deaf Martha Bessel, Deaf Moritz Stiefel, Deaf Thea Rilow, Deaf Wendla Bergmann, Dubious Consent, F/F, Fluff, GAY AWAKENINGS, Happy Ending, Hearing Melitta Rilow, Incest, Lesbian, Marlitta, Martha's POV, POC Lesbians, Parent/Child Incest, Physical Abuse, Rape, Sexual Abuse, Slow Burn, Suicide, Teenage Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-06-17 10:07:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 39,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15458979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bareunloveliness/pseuds/bareunloveliness
Summary: Martha Bessel is not someone who has actual, honest to God crushes, but after a sleepless night that ends with her in Melitta Rilow's bed, talking about anything and everything all night, she realizes that the butterflies in her stomach and newfound desire to touch and be touched by another person aren't going away. She's hooked on a wild, crazy badass out of her league, but as Melitta's the only one who holds her as her life falls apart, Martha might just fall in love. And it might just work out.Title from "Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac





	1. you sat and stared at my lips and i could already feel your kiss

**Author's Note:**

> If you're really going to start reading this fic (which I thank you for doing and honestly think it's a good choice, and that's coming from someone who typically hates her work), you need to know three things:  
> 1) If all goes well, you're going to absolutely adore Marlitta and then realize that there is absolutely no content out there for this rarepair.  
> 2) You have every right to then CREATE Marlitta content and then I will be forever indebted to you. (and you can link me here or on Tumblr @bareunlovliness; fan art, fics, moodboards, headcanons, drabbles, anything, please)  
> 3) It's super triggering. I'm going to mention that here, in the tags, and at the beginning of each chapter, because I want everyone reading to be completely aware about that. The mental health and safety of readers is incredibly important to me. Please, don't read this if you think it's going to trigger you at all. It's going to be heavy on the topic of "Dark I Know Well", and there will be scenes in which Mr. Bessel directly abuses Martha. It's not too detailed, but enough to be triggering. Take care of yourselves.
> 
> Based off of the DWSA revival as well as the Anya Reiss modernization of the play. (Shoutout to ShippingEverything who is the only person I've found who wrote a fic off Anya Reiss and is the sole inspiration behind Stoner!Ernst).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martha, running into Melitta Rilow breaking into a liquor cabinet, ends up having the most important conversation of her life with her best friend's older sister.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings: Heavy discussion of physical and sexual abuse from Martha's dad (so also canon incest), mentions of BDSM, mentions of porn, mentions of teenagers having sex, homophobia mentions, drug use mentions.  
> Title from Strawberries and Cigarettes by Troye Sivan

 

Martha Bessel laid on the bed, the mattress familiar to the way her back curved despite her barely sleeping on it, with the musk of sweat and sex threaded into the sheets. Uncomfortable was her normal, a word that hung so often in the back of her mind that she hardly noticed it anymore, even when she wanted nothing more than to fade away. Her eyes felt puffier than she cared to think about, tears wetting the pillow below her. Staring up at the ceiling, Thea's words replayed over and over again, guilt setting in with every breath.

"I don't know if I should tell you this," she had signed, fingers trembling as she sat on her own bed, cross-legged across from Martha, who always claimed Hanschen's as her own when she spent the night and he was out, selling who knows what to who knows who. "It's a really personal thing and it's not mine to share."

"Then don't tell me," Martha replied, as if that was the obvious solution. If there is something you shouldn't say, she was a firm believer that you shouldn't say it. She couldn't deny she wasn't the slightest bit curious, but the truth had its ways of coming out in its own time in its own way.

Thea paused, biting her lower lip. "But it's about you. That means I have to tell you, right?"

"Did someone talk shit about me?" she asked, worried that one of her friends might not like her company as much as she liked theirs. Her thoughts fluttered to Melitta, Thea's older sister, who was only sleeping a room over. She was seventeen, with wavy hair that flowed effortlessly on down her back that Martha envied. It was wild and free, unable to be contained by tight braids and Wendla's fingers trying to manage it. Being two years older and therefore superior in Martha's mind, Melitta was the one most likely to secretly hate her. "Because that you should tell me."

"Not exactly," Thea's signs were slow and drawn out, as if she was stalling for the night to end, despite it only being around eleven. The girls usually fell asleep closer to one, maybe midnight on a particularly long day. "But they did divulge secrets of yours... about your dad."

Martha's heart began to pound, beats of rushing waves of blood inside her ears catching her off guard. She suddenly felt as if Hanschen's empty bed was the only home she had, as her parents would truly kick her out faster than the Neumanns if they found out she was telling people what her dad was doing. "Who? And to who? Thea, you have to tell me. This endangers me more than you could imagine."

"I don't think he'll tell anyone!" she assured, more trying to convince herself that the situation was safe rather than Martha. "He cares about her too much. Wendla told Melchior. They meet up in the woods sometimes and she said it just came out. She didn't mean to."

"Melchior Gabor?" Martha signed his name, fingerspelling to emphasize how terrified of him and the situation she was. "He doesn't believe in God, what's to stop him from hurting me?" To Martha, morality and religion lived in harmony and that was the only way they could live at all. If you were an atheist, you didn't care about right or wrong, and if you didn't care about right or wrong, you probably didn't care about God either, like Ina Bergmann.

"I... I don't know." Thea sighed, tears forming in her doe-like eyes, swallowing as she sniffed. "He already hurt... he hurt Wendla. She has the same marks as you do, but on her legs. She told me it was fine and that she asked him to do it. Begged him, really. I don't understand why she wanted it."

The other girl took a breath. There were two reasons that a girl could ask to be beaten, and she was all too confident which one it was. Martha was well aware of the sexual pleasure that some derived from such an act, not from her own experiences, but of the videos she would click in the dead of night on her phone when she snuck it into her bedroom. She watched with wide eyes as girls begged for slaps upon their faces and asses, and the men happily obliged with wolfish smiles and degrading sneers. It horrified her; not the sex itself, but how the women were treated and how they wanted to be treated. It was impossible for her to consider this was how Wendla, poor Wendla, felt. The girl didn't wear bras and her lipstick of choice was grape-flavored lip gloss. There was no way that she wanted to try BDSM so quickly when it was common knowledge to the girls that Wendla didn't even know how love was made, which left the other reason.

Martha wasn't ignorant or stupid by any stretch of the imagination. She was wise and cunning, forced to grow up before she knew what that meant. She was clever enough to know that Wendla asked Melchior to beat her for _her_ sake so she could see what her close friend was going through. Wendla was too kind, too empathetic for her own good that she went to dangerous lengths to share experiences with her friends and walk as far as she could in their shoes, even if it was off of a cliff.

If Martha had only kept her fingers stiff and unmoving. If she had brushed off the scissors, just let the comment fade into the air, a distant shadow of the threat in her mind dissolving as if it never happened. If she hadn't lived in fear of undone braids, then maybe Wendla wouldn't be dotted with welts, maybe she would be able to sit and not ache, maybe her backside wouldn't be dreadfully painted with blue and red watercolors.

Images of galaxy-colored bruises and snaking hands flashed through her head as she laid back on Hanschen's bed, eyes glued to the ceiling. Thea had fallen asleep soon after their conversation turned and ended, almost immediately after she confessed to no longer liking Melchior Gabor after what he did. Martha appreciated the fact that her friend could so easily let go of a so horrid a crush, but couldn't let the idea run from her mind that her pain had spread to Wendla. The pale girl hadn't taken it, made it less and her own, but caught it like a disease, something that they would both have to suffer now.

Restless and tired of rolling over Hanschen's frequently washed faded sheets, Martha climbed out of bed and silently wandered the Rilow house, letting herself study the cracks and scrapes against the walls, as it was something to do. She quietly climbed down the stairs, which she could feel creak under her feet.

The kitchen, though small, had pale yellow paint against the walls and the chipped spots were expertly covered by wooden plaques reading various inspirational quotes or simple words like "family" and "home is always waiting for your return". She enjoyed the bouquet of fresh flowers always sitting in a white vase on the counter, always being replaced every few days by Mrs. Rilow, who liked to keep up the appearance of a beautiful and functioning house. She was utterly clueless about the things her children felt and the things they did, and probably assumed that Hanschen was spending the night at Moritz's and reciting Greek plays.

As Martha entered, two green eyes were lit by a single flashlight by a startled girl who was fiddling with a presumably stolen key to the liquor cabinet. In the dim light, it was hard to tell it was Melitta, with her messy hair and thin pink lips, sallow white skin hanging thinly on her frame. She said something quietly, but Martha had no trouble reading her cursing lips.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't sleep," Martha explained in sign, taking a single step away. "I was just walking around the house; I'll go back up to my room and you can drink whatever you want and we'll pretend we never saw each other."

"Wait," Melitta replied with one hand before Martha could turn away, her flashlight shining on the other's stomach. She held the light under her arm to make it easier to talk and said, "You've been crying." She approached Martha slowly, hands reaching up to wipe away her tears before the other took a step back, shaking her head.

She didn't want a pity party or to share her sob story, but truthfully, she didn't want Melitta's touch to be intermixed with her father's, his fingernails' shadows always on her cheek. "Don't, please." Her words were calm and plain, not asking for attention or offering an explanation.

Melitta nodded, the day that Martha confided in the girls replaying in her head since it happened and understanding the situation. "Did something happen again?"

"Not... to me." She explained, swallowing. "I should head back to Thea's room."

A softness had glazed over Melitta's usually cold and unforgiving eyes, some kind of affection for Martha. She hadn't seen that look since she told her friends the truth, as they always looked at her as if she was a wounded deer or a bomb about to explode. It was kind and familiar, like the way Thea would look at her when she talked about Moritz. "Stay up with me, you're not going to sleep anyway. You haven't been crying, you've been sobbing. Talk to me?"

"I wouldn't want to be a bother or intrude," Martha said, sniffling as she brushed a tear away. Truthfully, she hadn't stopped crying since Thea closed her eyes. She wished Melitta wasn't so painfully aware of that, but couldn't deny she would enjoy the company.

Melitta smiled with a big toothy smile where her eyes crinkled ever so slightly. "I'm inviting you. That means you'll be doing neither of those things. You don't even have to talk about whatever happened. We can talk about whatever you want."

She had an interesting outlook on life. She knew the world was rotten and cruel and full of the most horrible, awful things that one could imagine. She wished she didn't believe in God so much and found herself fascinated at the very least by those who didn't. She wore her hair in untamed, wild curls in a heavy black color that was often highlighted by a t-shirt or dress of the same shade. It wasn't gothic or emo, exactly, but it was borderline punk if anything, although Melitta would deny it in a heartbeat. She knew that life was pointless and everyone in the world wanted her, a young Asian girl in Germany, to fail.

Spite, nihilistic passion, and the utter belief that the world was shit kept her going. "If the rest of the world wants to suck balls, why should I? They can fondle mine for all I care, and that's just how it is in the bitch of a life," she told the group once, until Wendla told her to stop being so vulgar, to which she promptly mimed jerking off without a second thought.

"I suppose," Martha agreed as Melitta pocketed her key in her breast pocket and led Martha up to her room. The other had never been inside, as she never had any reason to enter the life of the eldest Rilow. Sometimes Melitta would hang out with Thea in her friends, but typically out of lack of somewhere else to be. And, it would be wrong for her to deny she liked being older, almost worshipped by the girls who hadn't realized there was nothing exciting about growing up yet. Martha, Ilse, and now Wendla had all figured that out by now, but there was still something interesting to Martha about Melitta. The girls, reaching the end of the hallway, entered Melitta's room, which was one of the smaller rooms of the house. As the eldest, she got the whole space to herself and had a pale blue bedspread under a string of thin fairy lights. Vinyls records lay across the floor with a player on a small white table, various sheets and fabrics hanging on the wall.

"I had to soundproof it," she explained, as Martha gazed around and took it all in. "Hanschen... is not as quiet as he appears. Honestly, I think you and Thea are the lucky ones sometimes." It was a joke, and Martha couldn't help but laugh. The brother was the single out kid at their school, but was protected from any harassment by being a valuable asset to every single stoner or stressed out AP student in fifty-mile radius. Nobody wanted to write slurs on their drug dealer's locker, but it was very clear to the rest of the students that were he not a member of society that they relied on so heavily, he'd be dead meat. This kept him not as an example of how easy it was to come out, but a warning that unless you were important, you better stay in the closet.

"They're really pretty," she admired, studying the various patterns and designs in every tapestry, some of them stained with coffee or black ink, and some with thin holes throughout.

Melitta smiled and sat on her bed, gesturing towards the olive green armchair in the corner of her room, as to not force Martha to be closer than she wanted to be. Martha, craving closeness and intimacy without touch, chose to ignore this and pretended like she wasn't looking and therefore was casually unaware she should sit on the distant chair. She cleverly took a seat on the soft bed next to Melitta, who said nothing of the action.

"Do you want to be distracted or to talk about your worries?" Melitta asked, almost in the same way Thea would have. It was a Rilow family concept, to ask the distressed family member what would be the best for them at that moment. It was a no-bullshit-method to figuring out how to help. There was no shame in either option and you could choose to switch at any time in the conversation. Martha was practically family, if not something equally close, and was very familiar with the way the three of them spoke to each other and lifted each other up.

Martha, wary of how close she sat to Melitta, her legs curled under her at the foot of the bed, leaning her back against the cool wall while the other girl leaned against her pillow with her legs outstretched on top of the comforter, her basketball shorts not long enough for her height. Martha admired her, for how free and unashamed she always was, and decided to take the risk. "Talk about it," she decided, eyes unable to meet Melitta's as they dancing across the room, memorizing the flowers embroidered onto cotton covered walls. "Wendla..." She paused after forming their friend's name-sign, unsure how to continue. "asked someone to beat her to put herself in my shoes. And he did."

"You know that's not your fault, right?" Melitta stopped herself from resting a reassuring hand on Martha's arm, knowing it would do more harm than good. "Whatever Wendla does or someone else does to her is your fault."

Of course, Martha had already thought of this, and despite believing it to be true, she had her doubts and a sinking feeling in her stomach that wouldn't go away. A tear dribbled down her cheek as she nodded, signing, "She wouldn't have asked him if I didn't tell her about my dad. She would have been safe."

"She is safe, okay?" The older girl promised. "He's not going to hurt her again. Now, she has an even stronger bond with you. She's not going to ask him again." Melitta, with her smudged eyeliner that she never took off and chipped black nails running through her tangled hair, silently hoped that her words would ring true and Wendla wouldn't return to a boy who was willing to beat her. Neither of them knew the half of it, or the events still to come, but this clarity was enough for now, but Melitta reached forward and held one of Martha's braids in her hand, showing her that it was falling apart. Martha instinctively reached up and began to braid feverishly, hand brushing against Melitta's.

Skin against skin, the human touch, often felt like salt in a wound to Martha, but instead of feeling a leathery grab at her skin, fingers curling around her arm and nails digging in until blood spilled out, she felt gentle sparks melt from Melitta's fingertips, softening her heart lightly. In an effort to show Melitta this was not an unwanted moment of affection, she placed her hand on top of the other's, palm around the back of her hand, around the thin braid. Melitta smiled in response, pressing a soft kiss against Martha's hand before letting her return to the braid.

Typically, her hair was the only part of her she wanted anybody to touch, to make sure it was always perfect. She thought back to the summer night in the park on Wendla's birthday, when her whirlwind of a life began to spin out of control, when Wendla pretended to cut it off. Wendla often did her hair, nimble fingers weaving in and out the coils and thick curls that Martha had grown to care for. They were dry and frail, catching over themselves as they tried to form the braids on their own. Melitta felt different, her skin brushing against Martha's, which is something she couldn't explain. She didn't choose to feel the constant lingering of unwanted advances, not only from her dad, but from others as well. Things as subtle as a tap on the shoulder in class to know what time it was, a hand reaching to hold hers, or two shoulders rubbing against each other as they reached for something at the same time, those were all enough for her to feel the effects for days, as if they were stamped into her skin.

"Distract me," Martha signed, changing her mind in accordance to the question proposed moments before.

"What's your favorite color?" The other asked, nervous toes wiggling in the air, burrowing themselves into the comforter.

"Pale green, like when you're lying on your back and you look at the trees against the sky and the sun," she answered, daydreaming and brought to a fantasy world where her back is damp from the dewy grass and Melitta is next to her, gazing up at the sun. "What's yours?"

"Violet." she replied, as Martha saw her fingers sign and reach for a bouquet of the flowers. The bedroom had disappeared from Martha's view, all that surrounded her was a field with a line of oak trees, hanging over them and giving them shade as they lay. Martha took the flowers and habitutately tore the petals off and tossed them aside. She saw Melitta's lips move, but when she looked up and cocked her head, the other girl shook her head and signed nothing, brushing off her unknown words. "Favorite scent?"

That was a sense that Martha relied heavily on, being one of the four she had. "Vanilla or honey or fresh cookies," she decided as she set the flower stem on the grass, letting the earth swallow it whole. Her mom baked a lot, and always told Martha when her latest creation was just coming out of the oven so she could sample it at the perfect time.

"Those are good ones," Melitta signed, eyes focused on every freckle upon Martha's face, almost trying to memorize the lines along her cheek bones as if she might never see them again. "I like strawberries and peaches. Fresh fruit. Don't tell my brother and sister though, they think I'm a lot more badass than I actually am."

"You're the most badass girl I know." Martha signed back, shifting her weight on the mattress and being brought back to the reality, which was just as good as the fantasy. Either way she was with Melitta, talking about absolutely nothing, in a gorgeous place. "Thea's pretty cool, but she has nothing on you."

"You flatter me," She laughed, teeth gnawing at the inside of her cheek. "Thea got her entire personality from me; actually, her and Little Hans both. That's what it means to be an older sister. Your siblings just steal your traits and call themselves original."

"Oh, so you're a drug dealer too?" Martha teased, miming a drag of a blunt and rolling her eyes half-closed in a perfect imitation of Ernst Robel, the class stoner.

"It's the family business," she shook her head, giggling as she watched Martha's smile spread over her lips. "But I am far more bisexual than he is and Thea's only interested in bad boys like Gabor because I was first. I wasn't interested in Gabor specifically," she clarified as Martha imitated gagging. "but other boys that weren't unlike him." And so she had been told.

Martha was only as familiar with the word 'bisexual' as Thea was, hearing it exclusively and constantly from Hanschen, who pretended to be vaguely annoyed if someone called him 'gay'. She'd never heard a girl use it to describe herself, let alone a girl as incredible as Melitta. As for Martha?

She thought about sex a lot. She watched porn and even had a little friend wedged between her mattress and boxspring when she needed some help and her own fingers weren't enough to satisfy her. She watched primarily straight sex on her phone, volume muted and eyes wide. That wasn't to say she wasn't focused on the girl as it happened, watching her closely and wondering what it must be like to engage in such an activity with someone you love. She knew the stars of her adult films didn't love each other and this was another day on the job for them, and they cared nothing for each other, but she couldn't help but wonder and let her mind wander. She never thought about anyone she knew personally, but she entertained the idea of not being straight.

Then Mrs. Bessel would come in, a few minutes after Martha had finished and tucked her belongings away, and tell her that it's getting late and she should start to get ready for bed, unknowingly reminding Martha that it didn't matter if she was gay or straight if she was too broken to be loved.

And that was the end of that idea's entertainment.

"I don't think Thea cares for him too much anymore." Martha signed, eyes faced down on the grey accent threading along the bedding.

Melitta understood this instantly and nodded when Martha looked back up, making a connection between the two conversations and staying strong on the chosen path of distraction. "Are there any boys you like? Outside of Moritz Stiefel?" Martha rolled her eyes and felt her cheeks heat up with the pressure of the sun, shaking her head as Melitta roared with laughter, eyes ablaze and head leaning back as she giggled. "There's not, is there? You really have it bad for the bottom of the class."

"He's not the bottom of the class, Ernst is." she reminded Melitta, as Hanschen informed both of them that Moritz had broken into the records and found out he passed his midterms. Hanschen was quietly happy for him, knowing who was at the most risk of failing if even _Moritz_ had passed. That was the week where Hanschen was hardly seen in the Rilow house, constantly helping his best friend study, which was insanely difficult according to Thea, as Ernst was baked almost every time. Martha couldn't help but wonder how much studying they got done if Ernst was always so high. "And grades don't matter, the heart matters."

"Spoken like a true romantic," Melitta teased, practically swooning in jest. "Mrs. Martha Stiefel. God, what a name."

"As if Melitta Mahler sounds so elegant." The other fingerspelled, tongue sticking out. She had clearly grown more comfortable with the other, as she didn't think twice about their joking banters and gossipy tones. "Anna told me that you hooked up with Bobby Mahler under the bleachers last summer when everyone was out of school!"

Melitta's jaw dropped, but her eyes were full of light and excitement at the accusation, grateful that her efforts in distracting Martha were working, even if it meant having to think about the boy who broke her (and her brother's, to be fair) heart. Unlike Hanschen, Melitta and Bobby had an actual relationship that lasted longer than five minutes. It didn't end well to say the least, but in her defense, it didn't start well either. "I knew I saw wheel marks along the track when I went home that day!" she signed, a grin beaming across her face. "That bitch! She should have told me she knew!"

"Well, she _certainly_ told me." Martha giggled, finding herself warming up to Melitta's bubbly personality. The two continued to chatter, about relationships and stupid boys and wickedly smart ones and teachers they didn't particularly like and the affair they heard Herr Sonnerstitch was having with Frau Neumann and Ilse's departure and everything connected to everything else like the way Martha's hand had found itself slipped inside Melitta's fingers interlocked as they lazily lay next to each other, having altered sitting positions many times through the night.

"What time is it?" Martha asked, yawning, and unfortunately pulling her hand away as the alarm clock read a time much later than she expected, as she rushed to her feet. "Shit, we've been talking all night."

"It hasn't felt like hours." Melitta confessed, lazily rolling to face Martha who double checked her braids in the mirror. "What's the rush?"

"Thea's going to wake up soon. I need to look like I spent the whole night with her." she replied, before Melitta's puzzled eyebrows asked her why. She hesitated, unsure of the answer and of what to tell her, assuming they weren't going to be the same thing. "I don't want her to be jealous that I spent the whole night talking to her insanely cool older sister instead of her. She is my best friend, after all."

"Okay." She couldn't quite see the necessity in this, but didn't question it. She agreed to pretend that nothing had happened, that the girls hadn't spent the best night of their lives together, feeling safe in the company of someone else for the first time ever.

Martha smiled, a hint of sadness in her dimples as she signed from the doorway. "Don't worry; I won't tell her that her badass sister has actual emotions or anything. Your secret is safe with me."

With that, she darted down the hall and crawled back into Hanschen's bed, and lay there, eyes open, for perhaps fifteen minutes before Thea crept to the edge of her bed and put her face in Martha's view. "You look like you slept well." Thea signed, sitting at the edge of the bed and eager to face a new day, as she always did. It was true, some of what Melitta said, about Thea copying parts of her personality. Maybe it was an attempt to try on someone else's features like a skirt you're looking at purchasing, or maybe it was imitation as a form of flattering. Martha hadn't noticed it until now, the way that both sisters had given up faith in the world but cheerfully lived in it.

"Please, I didn't sleep at all."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how many of you are familiar with me or my work, but welcome. I haven't written anything in about six months, but two days ago, the idea for a Marlitta fic came to me (thanks Julia!) and when I wrote this chapter, about five thousand words yesterday, I knew I had a good story to tell and I couldn't stop.  
> Please, leave a comment or a kudos! I read through every comment and cry every time I get an email saying I have one, so leave one on each chapter! Leave really long ones! Leave more than one! I'll love you forever.  
> You can find me on Tumblr @nothingbutvainfantasy and on Twitter @ohmyenchantress. I hope you stay along for the rest of this fic, it's going to be a wild, angsty ride. With a happy ending- I promise.


	2. empty smiles and empty faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martha, facing backlash of spending the night at the Rilows, tries to distance herself from Melitta, but she allows herself three more hours with the forbidden girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is probably the darkest, most triggering one I'm going to write. It opens with Martha being physically assaulted, but that quickly is going to turn into rape. I don't romanticize it or sexualize it, so it's hard to read and very uncomfortable, but I think it's important, that is, if you can handle reading it. It's not explicit, but readers will be present in Martha's mind as she is hit and raped by her father. This is canon incest, and obviously not condoned in any way.  
> There is also discussion of physical assault, bruises and similar markings, and blood.  
> Title from Hope from Groundhog Day.

"Too many wasted hours at the fucking  _ Rilows _ ," he said, tossing back a chipped glass of whiskey with distaste on his cracked lips, spit flying off into the air. "They think there's so much better than us, don't they? A fancy lawyer and his perfect fucking life." Martha could only catch a few of his words, eyes forced to follow his vile mouth in order to understand a fraction of what he said. He hardly knew ASL, didn't care enough to learn, and had no intentions of ever communicating properly with his fifteen year old daughter. 

"I like them," she said aloud, hoping her pronunciation was okay enough to understand. She signed along for the chance that maybe he would pick up on basic words and unconsciously learn the language she adored so much. "They're my friends." 

"What do you need friends for?" he snarled as she struggled to read him. "You have your mother and me. Don't talk back to me."

She nodded, taking a wary step backwards. Her eyes fell to the ground for a moment, where they wished to stay glued and focused to every groove in the wooden floor, but she didn't have that luxury, as she looked back to his moving lips. "...ungrateful little bitch. Look at me when I speak to you! I know that's the only way you can fucking understand me."

With that, his palm made thick, resounding contact with her cheek, a yelp escaping her lips. She kept her eyes open, wider than usually so she wouldn't close them like she yearned to, as they began to water. Immediately turning her head back to her father to face him, Martha swallowed and tried not to think. It was the only way she could survive any encounter with him, to place herself out of her body and somewhere else in the world. She was back in the meadow, the make believe place, and this time it wasn't just with Melitta. Wendla, Thea, and Anna were there too, and they all sat around and talked about nothing for hours on end, until Ernst Robel accidentally threw his copy of  _ Othello _ at the back of Thea's head. Martha felt the hit as the book made impact, her father's hand smacking her own and shoving her roughly out of his office and towards her bedroom. He was speaking again, behind her, and she consciously chose to not look at him.

"Accident." Ernst had signed, tapping his foot against the gravelly floor, looking back to catch a glimpse of the blond, who was watching him with equal determination, caring more about his friend and his precious play, contrary to popular belief.

Mr. Bessel dug through Martha's dresser, tossing aside her shorts and tank tops to find a sleeping gown that she had tried to get rid of for years, the pale pink color feeling too childish now. "Change." he demanded as he left the room, slamming the door behind him as the small glass animals on her shelves shook and threatened to fall. Threatened, that was what Martha had felt the moment his thin, wrinkled hands clasped around her dresser drawers. 

She obeyed, not daring to look at the mirror behind her as she dressed, not wanting to see her reflection. She did not want to see her breasts, hardly formed, or her stomach growing hair that she was not proud of. She never cared to look at her body, as it never truly felt like  _ hers. _ In accordance to the typical routine, Martha climbed under her lilac blankets, feeling as unsafe as one could in flannel sheets. Her father was likely downstairs, offering to put their child to bed, as if that was something that was still normal for a teenager. As if he was normal, as if anything about the entire family and their relationships were normal, as if what he was doing, what he did to her minutes later, saying words he knew she couldn't hear, words that made her skin crawl until she closed her eyes, imaging what was truly beautiful in the world, because she knew it sure as hell wasn't her. 

It was harder to think of her friends when it happened, not daring to associate them with such an act. She went through the alphabet and mentally named every fruit that she could, eyes closed tight as she tried to ignore the noises she felt escaping her lips. 

Apples. Bananas. Cranberries. Dragonfruit.

His fingernails scraped into her arm, drawing blood as red seeped into her sheets. 

Elderberries. Figs. Grapes. 

Fingers locked around her wrist, squeezing as purple threatened to pop out of her veins, colors swirling into a mixed mess of paint in a portrait that should never have been.

Honeydew Melons. No I. No J, she couldn't think about them.

She couldn't think when the worst color of them all about to spill, thankful for the thin rubber that separated her from her father, the safety device only included for his sake, so he would never have to tell the world his daughter was a whore, because that's what he would tell them. That would be the truth, he would make it so, because the alternative, Martha's truth, was something he would never dare admit.

Kiwi. Lemons. Melons.

And there, the final color of her twisted rainbow, white.

The world flashed to white and the white leaked and his skin, as it always was, was the palest white, coated with a thin layer of sweat. He left her, but not before spilling an all too hated compliment that was far too easy for Martha, with open, terrified eyes to understand.

"Beautiful."

She did not feel beautiful, she did not feel anything, as the door closed behind him and he turned off the light, allowing her the peace of being alone. She did not cry, as she had run out of tears throughout all the years, ages of this. It never turned easier, she just learned to turn her feelings off.  _ Wendla, _ she thought, _ must never try to put herself through that for my sake. She must never feel that. _

Martha held up her arm and peered at it, not bothering to fix the deep marks or harsh bruises left. All too aware of what she would have to wear tomorrow, as the temperature reached the highs of late August temperature. The odds of earning alert from her friends dropped significantly if she wore a sweater than anything that showed her forearms, but they still remained unlucky for her. There was no escape of the pity and terror in their eyes, not since she told them the truth just a month or so prior. She rued the day in the park more than anything else.

Scratchy mustard yellow fabric rubbed against her skin, which she finally bandaged the next morning for fear of the yellow turning red and her friends' faces turning solemn. Wendla, in her thin camisole with a built-in bra (a compromise that her and Frau Bergmann managed to reach as the end of summer had come and gone), almost commented at the heat, the words at the edge of her fingertips. She was just as uncomfortable, black jeans covering her legs. The girls shared a moment of understanding, mutual seriousness echoing in each others eyes, almost a nod from Wendla in art class, as both of them returned their focus to spilling watercolors across a canvas. It was a required course, and only Melitta truly cared about the subject, even putting time in outside of school to work on her canvases.

Anna, also silently away of the situation and the sweater that would have been an adorable fashion statement in the winter or early spring, complimented Martha on it. "I like your sweater," she signed, but with a smile only on her lips, a subtle lack of sincerity giving her away. Martha thanked her and said nothing else.

Thea wasn't even at school that day, and Melitta said she was sick. Martha found this very hard to believe, as she was fine at the sleepover the previous day, but neglected to point this out in fear that Melitta would point out the holes in Martha's situation.

It was a reasonable fear, because Melitta was going to do that no matter what Martha did or did not say about her sister's absence. "Hey, Martha," she had signed, teeth pressed into her lower lip. "Walk me to the paintbrushes?"

The other was afraid of this, and knew that if anyone had the guts to confront her, it would surely be Melitta. Despite this, she wanted to follow the girl wherever she went.  _ Perhaps,  _ she told herself,  _ she just wants to talk about the other night. _

Once behind an easel, so they were both concealed, Melitta signed with utter poise and grace, "Something happened last night, didn't it?"

"It doesn't matter," Martha replied, decided to neither confirm or deny the statement.

She signed, wishing the other would open up to her. "Yes, it does, because you matter and your safety means everything to me. Look, I wasn't going to tell you this until I really thought you might need it, but I think you really do. I wasn't sure if this stuff would still happen once school started, but since it clearly does, you should know that you always have a place with me and my fam-"

"I don't want your family," Martha cut her off, unable to explain the taste of bile rising in her throat as she told the other her truth of the moment. "I don't need your family, or to be your charity case."

"No, that's not what this is," She explained shaking her head. "I'm doing this because we're friends and Thea and Hanschen and I care about you. This is what friends do."

"Hanschen?" She almost laughed. "He doesn't give a fuck about me. We literally never talk outside of greeting each other when I come over. Don't throw them into it when this is for your own conscience. Thanks, but I'm okay."

"You think this is for my own benefit?" The girl scoffed, unsure why Martha was acting so standoffish. Even Martha could barely tell, maybe it was something her father said worming its way into her mind in order to poison her thoughts until they rotted and died. "You have a group of people who love and care about you. We still have the keys to that old hayloft that we played in as kids, down the street, behind Gabor's house. Nobody goes in there anymore and your dad would have no idea."

Growing up, whenever the kids needed to escape for any reason, or meet up, they used the abandoned hayloft that had two pairs of keys hanging by it. Wendla was the one who found it, buried in the woods on Melchior's property. Thea was the first to climb in, nothing but a flashlight and flyswatter to protect her. There was a fox darting around, but once they led it out to its home, the hayloft was there's. Before the start of middle school, when they all but decided to grow up, the whole of them, all fifteen children, held a meeting to decide who earned the keys. Ultimately, Melchior and Melitta were the two deemed worthy of the privilege, for Melchior was closest to the loft and his was his land (not to mention he  _ may _ have been the smartest of them), and Melitta was the eldest and therefore 'most responsible'. 

The thought of staying there hadn't slipped its way into Martha's thoughts since she was a child, no older than six, when she was first hit. She had tried to run away that night, with nothing but a small package of crackers tied into a blanket, like she had seen in the movies. She was almost immediately caught, and paid the price. That was almost the last time she considered the escape, but after Ilse happened, she'd be lying if she said she didn't think about it. Priapia seemed like a safe haven, but in all fairness, so did the Bessel house. Martha gathered that there was something less than perfect happening on the inside.

"Keys to a pile of hay, what a generous gift." Martha rolled her eyes, refuting the offer.

"You don't understand, it's more than just-"

She began to sign again, not letting the other finish her statement. "Can you please, just do me one favor? I'll never ask for anything again, I promise."

"Absolutely," Melitta agreed. "Anything."

"Forget I told you anything about my dad in the first place. Go back to how it was. Pretend like nothing happened." Martha explained, holding back tears with every fiber of her being, willing them to stay caught in her eyes and demanding that they don't show weakness. "Please?" She rubbed her hand over her heart in sign, and Melitta nodded.

"Fine. I'll forget everything," she decided, but continued. "on one condition. You and me. We're going to go out tomorrow. Tell your parents that you're spending the afternoon with Thea. You come with me wherever I go. Three hours, max."

Whoa. She couldn't tell if this was a date sort of thing, but she couldn't say no either, not to Melitta's softening features, a window to her stone soul almost opening a crack for Martha to see inside. "Deal." She knew her parents wouldn't approve of Thea at this point, so she added. "But I'm telling them I'm staying with Wendla. They like her more. I'll get her on board."

"Tomorrow. Right after school. I'll drive." Even now, even after everything, Martha thought Melitta was the coolest bitch on the planet. Neither girl was old enough to drive a car yet, but the eldest Rilow was known for her shimmering red motorcycle. German driving laws were funny that way, but Martha didn't care because she never got to ride on one before. The idea of being so physically close to Melitta made her head spin as the two parted and Martha made her way back to Wendla, who had shades of crimson and cyan blended on her canvas, with white specks throughout. It almost appeared as a galaxy, something beautiful to the typical eye that had no reason to see otherwise in it.

Martha didn't have the typical eye.

"A bruise," she signed, fingers pointed towards each other timidly. Wendla nodded, paintbrush in hand as she worked, brushing a ribbon of purple across, which only made the other think of Melitta. Her heart ached and although she couldn't describe the feeling, as it was neither unbearable nor enjoyable, she recognized it for what it was and elected to ignore it, not wanting to crush again. Not when she was who she was.  _ It wouldn't be fair to either of us, _ she rationalized. "Wendla." She needed her friend's full attention for a moment, and watched as she sheepishly returned the paintbrush to its shelf on her eisel. "I know... I know what Melchior did to you."

"What I asked him, begged him to do," she clarified, shaking. There was no way she didn't know this conversation was coming, that Martha's fear for her friend would give her cause to say something. "It's not his fault."

"That's not what I wanted to talk to you about," she explained, as that was a thin line to cross another day. "I don't want you to get hurt because of me. To think you need to experience horrors like that because of me."

"He barely even stroked me." That wasn't quite a lie, as it started that way. 

Martha knew better, of course. "Please, tell me you won't ask him or anyone else again. Things could get so much worse than you could think of." She pushed the thought of Melchior taking advantage of Wendla more than he already had out of her mind, not wanting to imagine her beloved friend in a situation like that.

"Why is it that the entire world seems to know things that I can't?" she asked, frustrated not at Martha, but at every single knowledgeable person in her life. Her mother, her sister, and even Melchior with his ridiculous journal that he carried with him as if it contained the darkest secrets of the universe. She sensed a connection in all three's mysteries, and with Martha's. "Please, tell me more. You're the only one I can trust to tell me  _ anything. _ "

Martha knew what Wendla was asking, but she shook her head. "Absolutely not. I don't know too much more than you do, Wendla. I know the mechanics of the thing, sure, but I don't know the health. The love, the safety, or choice. I don't know anything that matters." She knew as much as the soulful sleepyhead himself, the cold hard facts, but nothing of the emotion behind the forbidden act. "I can't help you." Now was the hardest possible moment, after denying information, for Martha to ask for a favor of a lie. "Can we just forget about it?" she asked of her the same she asked of Melitta, but she knew it would benefit Wendla just as much to throw the conversation to the wind, letting the ghosts of their signs melt away. 

"It would be best," she agreed.

"Do you think you could do me a favor?" Martha said, embarrassed and unsure how to say exactly what she meant. She didn't want to seem like her and Melitta were going off to the woods to do something Wendla couldn't describe, but she needed a solid cover.

Wendla, being the same kind-hearted girl she always was smiled. "Of course, what do you need?"

"Nothing, probably, but if anyone asks where I am tomorrow after school, it's your house," she left it at that; the less that Wendla knew, the better. Besides, Martha didn't exactly have much more information than that in the first place.

"I don't suppose I get to know why?" The characteristic curiosity of Wendla Bergmann seemed to flood the art room again in the form on a sunbeam drifting through the window. Martha, like she always would, adored her friends more than anything else in her life. She'd do anything for them, and always hoped they felt the same way about her (even though the doubts that they didn't often accompanied her as she tried to fall asleep at night).

She shook her head. "Not yet."

Wendla gasped, excitement coursing through her veins. "Is it a boy? Do you have a date with Moritz Stiefel tomorrow?"

"You couldn't be more wrong," she laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was tough, but I hope you thought it was good! (I don't want to say 'enjoyed it' because... I hope you didn't enjoy it...) As an author giving out free content on the Internet, it's my job to beg you to leave comments (and kudos). Even a quick "good job!" means the world to me (that isn't to say I don't cry with excitement if you leave me a long comment or a thread of them omg). I hope to update soon, and Melitta and Martha will go on their 'outing' in the next chapter. What do you think it is?  
> You can find me on Tumblr @nothingbutvainfantasy or @ohmyenchantress on Twitter!  
> Thanks so much for reading!


	3. i didn't know i was broken til i wanted to change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martha couldn't be less prepared for Melitta's devious plan to get her to realize what she truly deserves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings: Lots of discussion and thoughts about child abuse, but we're not going to see any this chapter like last time, although there is a lot that has to do with bruises and markings leftover from last time. Lots of discussion of body image and the sexualization of children. Sort of explicit but not really? The worst word I wrote was "pussy", probably? Martha's gonna get a little bit turned on, but no actual smut happens (yet. I haven't decided if I'll actually write it yet). More mentions to porn, themes of child pornography, but I promise that it's not bad. Not that child pornography is good, but I can't really explain it without giving stuff away. I'm going to talk about this more in the notes, just so we're on the same page.
> 
> Title from I Wanna Get Better by Bleachers

Chapter Three

"Isn't she pretty?" Melitta grinned, gesturing towards her bike, sleek and black with a red stripe. Martha knew nothing of motorcycles, but this was by far the prettiest one she ever laid eyes on, mostly due to the girl next to it, letting her hair drape over it. Of course Melitta had to wear a leather crop top that sat on the line between shirt and bralette, with high-waisted black denim shorts and matching Doc Martens. She looked like she belonged on the steel death trap, cruising into the sunset with a middle finger in the air, a collection of metal rings hanging on both hands.

Martha, on the other hand, could not have felt more out of place, in a peek-a-boo shoulder top in baby pink and white shorts. She thought it was a cute outfit, something that looked like she threw it on when the reality was it took an hour the night before, knowing she was driving away with Melitta after school the next day. Her parents said nothing as she left that morning, or at least nothing she could hear. Strappy sandals adorned her feet, which slowly made their way towards her ride for the evening. "Gorgeous. Is now a bad time to mention I've never ridden a motorcycle before?"

The older girl laughed, covering her face with her helmet and offering her spare to Martha. "Totally news to me, I had no idea." she signed clear sarcasm in her words. She got on first, long legs straddling the seat as she revved the engine, turning it on. Martha had seen her on it before, but usually from a distance, as she zoomed past. "Don't waste my three hours just standing there."

Martha swallowed, sitting on the bike behind her, their bodies pressed together as she tried not to think about it. Melitta silently took Martha's hands and had them meet around her waist, so she was securely holding onto the professional.

One of their hearts was beating out of control, and it wasn't Melitta's.

She struggled to breathe for a moment, not from the terror of the new experience known as motorcycling, but from her legs open on the surface of the bike, pressed against Melitta, arms around her stomach, chin resting on her shoulder. She could smell the other's shampoo and smiled as she realized it was strawberry scented. It didn't surprise her at all, but after making sure everything was fastened, Melitta took off.

At first, Martha's eyes were glued shut, not wanting to see how fast they went down the streets of Germany, streets she always thought were beautiful. At a stoplight, Melitta's hand landed on her lower thigh, a gentle question of whether or not she was okay. Martha opened her eyes and put her hand on top in response. The light turned green and Martha vowed to herself that she would keep her eyes open and watch the world move past her in a beautiful blur, the paved roads of her childhood and adolescence blending together as the wind blew her braids passed her head, wagging them in the early autumn air. She felt her voice box shake, unsure what was coming out, but hardly caring.

The roads turned less familiar, out of the village part of town full of little shops and bakeries, and towards bends and drives she had never seen before. The fun of the ride dripped away as it became mediocre, a literal pain in the ass as she shifted her weight. Her mind was reeling again, not from the space between them or lack thereof, but trying to figure out where they were going. None of their friends lived down here, the houses were all in the same neighborhoods, only a few streets apart. They were at least out of town at this point, but it wouldn't be beyond their abilities to walk back, maybe reaching Moritz's house within twenty minutes.

A few final turns, and Melitta parked the bike outside of an abandoned warehouse, surrounded by various tents and alleys, tables set up with spray paint art and bootlegged purses. The people around didn't look homeless, but they didn't exactly appear homely either, with maxi skirts and body paint in place of clothes.

"Melitta," Martha signed as they climbed off the bike and she took in the surroundings. "We're in Pripia, aren't we?"

"The greatest artist's colony in the country," Melitta signed back, spinning as she wore a wide grin on her face. "Or at least, the only one I've bothered visiting."

"How often do you visit?"

"Once a week, if I can, just to make sure Ilse's doing okay. And has birth control. It might not be totally legal, but neither is what made her come here in the first place." The response struck a chord in Martha. Of course, that's why she brought her here. So Ilse could talk her into how freeing and wild and bohemian it was to live on your own. Martha saw right through the plan, but would pretend to remain oblivious, just to see what all the fuss was about, and get to spend time with Melitta. Not to mention see Ilse again, when it had been... longer than she cared to admit.

They deposited their helmets on the bike, and Melitta said something to one of the artists pointing at the bike. He was very thin and tall, with an orange-dyed mustache with curls, and wore denim overalls with nothing underneath. They made conversation for a moment, laughing, as Martha took in the scene. Distant, behind a lamppost and throwing darts at a wall of paint-filled balloons hung in front of a blank white sheet, Martha noticed a girl with auburn hair past her shoulders, a small frame, and a faded stick-a-poke tattoo that Thea had given her with a sewing needle and ink, a violet butterfly on the back of her calf.

Breaking into a run, Martha abandoned Melitta and dashed towards her old friend, surprising her in a full hug, practically jumping on her back. The adrenaline of seeing her again kept Martha's mind distant from the places the connected, and Ilse turned around, dropping her dart and kicking it aside for safety.

"Martha Bessel?" she performed the name sign, rusty in ASL from lack of use. Her muscle memory could never let her forget it, especially the most important name sign she knew. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Melitta, at that moment, caught up behind Martha and explained, vaguely signing along to the explanation. "I brought her. Things are getting bad and I wanted to show her your life."

"It's not quite a life as much as it is an existence," Ilse spoke with no regard to whether or not anyone understood her, but took in Martha with a grin. "You look so different."

"I look different?" she repeated, rolling her eyes. "You're not even the same person! You dyed your hair and everything!"

"Not exactly," Ilse shook her head, recalling when she was a blonde. "This is a wig. I actually shaved my head last month for Gustav Baum's latest photography series. He wanted to turn me into a fairy princess with snakes instead of hair. It was quite unusual, but he stopped them when they tried to choke me, once he got a few good shots."

Martha's eyes practically jumped out of her head out of shock, not understanding the normalcy that could possibly live in those words, or the fact there wasn't supposed to be any. Things were supposed to be wild and unprecedented here, but that didn't mean there were good. For now, Ilse planned to only show her the romanticized, beautiful side of living in a place like this with people like these. "So you're a model?"

Ilse paused, trying to think of the best word for it because she didn't think it was model. "I'm a bohemian," she clarified. "but you should totally be a model! Just for the afternoon, no strings attached! We have a room for life models with easels and everything set up in Big Frank." She pointed to the warehouse, going up for stories and stories. "No boys allowed in that room, and for good reason. They're all dirty, rotten, good-for-nothing skirt-chasers here." Martha knew what her friend meant by that, and nodded. She didn't particularly like the way that she looked, but if someone else felt inspired by her, she couldn't see herself refusing. "Seriously, it'll be fun!" she promised. "Follow me, I'll get you set up."

Trailing in Ilse's path, Martha exchanged nervous glances at Melitta as they entered the building, opting for the stairs instead of the rickety elevator. Knives lined the railing, providing those who passed by the chance to carve something into the platforms. There were more than enough lewd images and initials in hearts, but some had taken the time to write poems with craft blades. Martha ran her fingers over the phrase "A wail through the willows!" on the top of the railings. 

On the second floor, Ilse weaved her way past hanging sheets, some with paint on them and others with fabric sewn in various patterns. Martha personally liked the one with a turtle on it, its shell made of tin foil somehow fastened to the work. In a distant back room, Martha couldn't help but cover her eyes at the indecency on display.

Naked women sat on desks and stools, under hot lights. Some had glitter or paint sprinkled or flicked across their faces, and some had their legs spread into splits. Other women stood and painted them, all in vastly different styles. Martha peered out from under her hand at the canvases. No two of them looked alike, both the women and their respective works, and yet they were all immensely beautiful that Martha, for a moment, forgot how to breathe. She watched brushes flow, turning dark-skinned girls (not unlike herself) into the next Mona Lisa, with the night sky living in their breasts and stars speckled along their legs. One artist wasn't painting, but sketching with charcoal. Her model held a rose between her lips, facing away with a large scar down her back.

It was indescribable to see so many bare women in one place, and in person. Martha couldn't help but compare them to the ones she had seen online, with perky breasts and sculpted asses, always jiggling with every hit or thrust.

Here, breasts angled in opposing directions and mixed up sizes, with hair and freckles in places she hadn't seen online. Shaving seemed to be a foreign concept, but dying body hair wasn't. Martha almost laughed at the bright magenta one woman had colored herself, only under her arms and waist. 

"Am I supposed to strip?" Martha asked nervously when they reached the first available easel, where Ilse set up a canvas. She couldn't have been much younger than any of the other girls, but the idea horrified her. Complete strangers seeing her body, however, wasn't what struck fear in her heart, but having both Ilse and Melitta see the corners of herself that she kept hidden for good reason.

Ilse smiled kindly, warmth radiating off of her. "If you're comfortable, yes. I promise it's way more fun than it looks. This is the best place to be. Nobody's looking at you, especially not sexually. We care more about the way shadows dance on your chest than if you shaved your pussy."

The very word sent Martha's cheeks into a red flush, and she turned to Melitta as if asking what to say. "You don't have to do it if you don't want to," she reassured the other. "I totally understand if you don't want some stranger drawing you naked."

Martha, simply put, did not want some stranger drawing her naked.

But she promised Melitta her time, and there was almost an appeal to seeing herself through someone else's eyes, especially so bare. Coming to Pripia was a distant daydream of her comfort zone, and she figured that if she was already leaving that part of her where she felt safe and at home, she might as well go on a journey.

"I'll do it," Martha signed, lifting her shirt off of her body and over her head, her white bra being the next clear step between her and exposure in front of her friends. Ilse let out a whoop and beamed, having never seen her old friend so bold and daring. "but I want Melitta to be my artist."

Her artist, caught off guard by the comment, blinked in response. It was an understandable request, to want someone you know and feel comfortable with to be the one staring at your naked body for the next hour or so, but Melitta couldn't help but flush. "Come on, I'm sure any of the others who do this shit every day would give you a much better painting," she rambled. "I've never drawn a naked body before."

Martha didn't want to mention that she planned to destroy the painting after, because she didn't want it falling into the wrong hands. A single photograph of it could ruin her life; she was a minor, after all. "And I've never posed for a nude painting before either," she signed before unbuttoning her shorts. "If I'm doing something crazy today, you are too. Deal?"

Ilse, who couldn't stop grinning, helped Martha undress and folded her clothes as she removed them, while Melitta pondered the situation. Waiting for Martha to finish undressing, she sighed, muttered something under her breath, and began to set up a tray of watercolors with a fresh mug of clean water. Martha watched her hustle around the studio with admiration, waiting her focused eyes dart around for the right size and style of brushes. After gathering supplies, Melitta returned to the easel without looking up at Martha, who was awkwardly in the nude. Ilse set the clothes aside as she helped pose her nervous friend.

"Can I touch you?" she signed, and Martha nodded, breath shaky. It was strange in a million ways she couldn't describe, as well as a little chilly. Ilse had seen hundreds of naked bodies, and thought nothing of it, cold hands guiding Martha's unshaved legs to various positions as she tried to think of something that would be comfortable for a long amount of time and only showed as much as Martha would be comfortable with. Ultimately, sat on her knees, facing Melitta, leaning back as she propped herself on her hands. Her legs were parted slightly, just enough to feel daunting but not enough to see anything that her chubby thighs wouldn't cover. She arched her back, trying to make her breasts appear bigger, firmer, and more like the women she had seen online. Ilse caught her in this act, and promptly told her, "Rest your torso naturally. Breathe out, let yourself collapse. You don't need to try to look sexy. That's not the point of this."

It was at that moment that Martha realized that in order to keep her pose, she would be unable to talk for the next hour, outside of basic a basic "yes" or "no". 

"Okay, are you comfortable?" Melitta signed, and Martha nodded. The artist took a deep breath and began, trying not to focus on Martha's breasts every time she looked up. This was just a much a challenge for her as it was for her model, but she began to pencil a vague outline of the way that Martha's body arched and curved and settled, drawing the movement of her body and where it was facing, planning the proportions for her limbs. She was too aware of Martha's gaze, feeling the other's eyes on her at all times, as she had nowhere else to look. She began to fill in the outline with dark copper paint, letting it start as a light shade and darken with more pigment, shadows falling where they needed to.

She concentrates on specific markings, like the scratches on her shoulder. Melitta didn't want to think too much about it, but she couldn't stop envisioning how they got there, carved into skin that wasn't his by a savage wolf who took what he wanted. She brushed the bruises on Martha's thighs, old worn hands traveling up them and pushing her legs apart. Teeth marks on her breasts, digs in her stomach, and cuts across her collarbones haunted the painter, as she held back heavy tears that begged to come out.

Martha could see this in her friend's eyes, the distressed and focused glare of someone who was holding back natural emotions. It was fascinating to watch her work, tongue balanced between her teeth as her eyes switched from her subject to her canvas, seeing her friend as nothing more than a collection of shadows and highlights. That's, at least, what it appeared to Martha until Melitta started crying.

Ilse was sitting on a bench along the wall, babbling away in both German and sign, not really speaking to anyone in specific. She soon realized that both of her friends were too focused on each other to notice, and she began to question the level of their relationship. As she watched a tear find its way down Melitta's cheek and into her paint mug, Ilse jumped to her feet. "I have an idea," she signed before digging through a wooden cabinet. "Why don't we do photography instead?"

"I'm a painter," Melitta explained, although looking at the mess of colors running together with no details, she didn't feel like a successful one. "I don't do photography. I don't see a lot of difficulty in holding a camera and hitting a button."

Ilse glared at her, pulling out acrylic paints, thinner, and a few other non-toxic chemicals. "Every single photographer in a hundred mile radius wants you to swallow bullets now, congratulations. Anyway, we're not going to take pictures yet, we're going to paint Martha."

"I already tried painting Martha!" The two weren't signing at this point, as Martha just watched, confused and sitting up, betraying her pose. "And it didn't fucking work because she's so fucking beautiful and every inch of her incredible self can't be captured with fucking water. She's the practically a fucking goddess and doesn't deserve any of this shit."

"Neither did I," Ilse said quietly, mixing various colors together in different cups. All the cups were from different places; some ceramic university mugs from places everyone dropped out of and some plastic, stolen from restaurants. There was no rhyme or reason to anything in the colony, and it was one of the few appeals to Ilse. "And you're not listening to me. We are going to paint Martha."

It was when Ilse tested a color on the back of her hand that Melitta understood.

Martha cleared her throat, knowing it would generate just enough noise for them to turn around. "Hey, so what the fuck are we doing now?" she signed. "Are you done already?"

"We actually haven't started," Ilse said, grinning. "Can I touch you again? And Melitta?"

"Yes...." Martha agreed, somewhat self-conscious as Melitta approached her with a small cup of pale green paint. "Do you need me in a certain position?"

"Flat on your back," Melitta signed, as Martha rearranged herself on the table, feeling not unlike a patient in a hospital, but without the gown. "This might be a little cold, okay?"

The subject nodded, swallowing as she closed her eyes. Melitta swatched a heavy layer of mint across Martha's stomach, starting to build a background to work on. A squeak escaped her lips as Melitta laughed, spreading the base across her stomach. It was strange, being so close to her again like they were on that one night, and this time being allowed to touch, to giggle at the sheer ridiculousness of the entire situation. She told Ilse which colors, which exact shades to mix, beginning to illustrate flowers along Martha's arms as she began to turn her friend into a garden.

The point of this new plan wasn't to turn Martha's scars and bruises into art, to show that there was beauty in the pain, to make her thankful for the marks that her father had given her, no, it was to remind Martha that she could build off of any foundation that the world had cursed her with. The cuts and scars along her skin weren't art, but she was. She was real, and human, and deserved nothing but peace for the rest of her life. Melitta peered over her work, which was truly coming to life in a way that made her proud, and signed, "Can I paint your tits?" with a goofy smile in hopes of reminding Martha that this wasn't a big deal. It was art; nothing more and nothing even close to being less.

Martha nodded, and Melitta began to blend a goldenrod yellow against the green, working her way up, between Martha's breasts, and then down both of them, her brush tickling Martha's areolas and nipples. She giggled at the strange sensation, letting out noises and yelps that she couldn't hear. Melitta thought this was equal parts hilarious and adorable as she finished the yellow base, beginning to go back over it with brown, creating sunflowers on each breast. With Melitta leaning over her, breath intermingling above Martha's chest, a sudden heat flowed through her body that she could only compare to the feeling she would get when she loaded up quality porn, with things she actually enjoyed.

_ Oh, shit. _

In an instant of realization, she tried not to think about how inadvertently sexual the entire experience was. It was distant and easy when Melitta worked on a canvas, but not when Martha was the canvas. She couldn't help but notice her heart flutter every time Melitta worked a little closer to any sensitive part of her, from her collarbone to her wrists to where her sins lay. Fortunately, it was much easier for her to conceal her arousal considering she didn't have a cock, so she just tried to ignore it, praying the hot rush of excitement in her veins might calm down to a soft breeze. 

Within the hour, Martha was to stand up so Melitta could paint her backside, as laying down was no longer an option when there was drying paint. covering one side of her body, all the way up to her chin. Ilse had pinned back the braids so they wouldn't fall on her sky blue shoulders, while Melitta painted two gorgeous angel wings on Martha's back as the model took this opportunity to observe what had been painted elsewhere. Daisies dotted her arms, with a single violet wrapped around her right ring finger. Vines twisted around her legs, carefully designed leaves trailing down her thighs. Once her back was finished, along with her ass and calves, Melitta returned to her face with a clean brush.

"This might be a little ticklish," she signed before beginning work, letting roses crowd around her face, starting from the hairline and working around her cheeks. They were almost buds, and Melitta finished with thorns around her mouth, a metaphor for her forced silence.

After a moment of letting the paint dry, Ilse unpinned the braids and carefully signed "Can I undo them? I'll rebraid them when we're done."

Martha, certain that her dad wouldn't be caught dead in a five-mile radius of this place, agreed, and fervently undid one of them while Ilse worked on the other, letting her hair fluff out, expanding over her shoulders. With a grin, Ilse led her friends back to a Women's Only photography studio, with only an off-white sheet as the background. "Flea markets," Ilse answered Melitta's questioning smirk as to where they had acquired so many damn sheets. "And yard sales. And we tied them out of the windows when some of us escaped like you see in the movies. It's symbolic to during something so crucial to our exits into something so crucial to our art."

"These were your sheets," Melitta said aloud, digging through a box in the corner as Martha took a seat on the stool in front of the room. She pulled out faded pink fabric from the box, pictures of tiaras and frogs on them. "We used to have sleepovers all the time when we were little. You, Martha, Wendla, Thea, and me."

Eleven. Eleven years into her life and Ilse was told to live on the streets, with nothing but a sheet around her body, and even that was a blessing that she didn't expect from her parents. It was warmer than clothes, but much harder to walk in. She turned away from Melitta, setting up the camera. "Yeah, those are mine." She said coolly, signing various instructions for poses to Martha, and snapped away, adjusting the exposure and lighting every so often. She wasn't typically a photographer but learned a few tricks from pretentious assholes who loved telling her about their craft, assuming she knew nothing about it.

Martha signed in a few of the pictures, words that meant a lot to her. ASL, a language she could speak with her body, it didn't feel like some kind of curse, something she was forced to learn because there weren't many options. A lot of people ask her, usually through an interpreting friend, if she would rather be hearing than deaf. The answer was always no, and she found a unique satisfaction in who she was. She had a lot bigger problems to deal with than sound, she'd tell them, but her truth was that her deafness wasn't a problem at all. She could connect to Thea, Wendla, and Moritz on a different level than everyone else. Sure, they all grew up learning sign together, but she could tell when her hearing friends were dying to speak to someone out loud, to communicate while holding things or holding someone else. 

"Beauty," she signed circling her palm around her face, closing painted fingers together and carefully allowing them to separate. 

"Child," she closed her eyes as she signed, wondering when she allowed the things she couldn't control to define her so heavily. When she allowed the things that happened to her to define her. They were a heavy part of her life that she couldn't deny, but she didn't have to highlight.

"Light," she decided to say, watching her fingers speak with a newfound wonder.

A small tear ran down her cheek, smudging the paint. Once one arrived, more quickly followed, and Melitta and Ilse decided to end the shoot. Ilse scrolled through the camera and worked to print them on a small electric printer, even though the quality wouldn't be the best. Melitta had found an empty bucket and filled it in the sink, soaking old sponges that old paint had crusted inside. It wasn't perfect, but with a little bit of soap, it could get the art off of Martha's skin. She felt melancholy, a grief overtaking her as she scrubbed flakes of flowers off of her skin and onto the floor, Melitta working on her feet and legs. There was a lot to cover, certain they didn't miss a spot. It would be impossible to explain this to Martha's parents.

As they finished working silently, every inch of Martha's body back to being exposed and bare, Melitta fetched her clothes and Ilse laid out the best of the photos across the table. She held up an SD card and snapped it in half. She then proceeded to crush it under the tripod, grinding it into dust. "The only copies of these photos are on the table in front of us," she said, knowing how much trouble all three of them could get in. "It's up to you to chose what do to with them."

Martha couldn't help but gasp as she looked at them, her body covered in art that she didn't know Melitta was capable of. Looking at them straight on instead of upside down from the top of her head, she realized there were words weaved into the vines and messages in the leaves, stems twisting into phrases around her legs.

"Full of love," Melitta said aloud and signing as Martha found the words. "Kind. Compassionate. Stunning. Unbelievable. Soulful. Humane. Generous. Unbreakable. My best friend. Martha Bessel."

Tears wetting the pictures below, Martha wrapped Melitta in a hug, pressing her head against the other's chest, not daring to think about letting go. Her heart pulsed, much faster than Martha had expected, as she let out a sob. She never thought she would be able to see herself in such a light, but she never dreamed that someone else could see her like that. All her life, she was a toy, a tool, or a disgrace. To Melitta, she wasn't a person, she was everything. It was all she wanted from another person. "Thank you," she said out loud, choking on her words and not caring if she said them correctly.

At the sound of the other's voice, Melitta couldn't help but crying, sniffling into Martha's unbraided hair. They stayed like this for a moment until Martha pulled away, laughing at the absurdity of the entire day. She woke up thinking that maybe Melitta would take her to a coffee shop, or maybe to get milkshakes. The weirdest possibility she thought of was maybe going to an empty church to pray. Not this. Never this.

Ilse, who was also crying by now, wrapped them in a quick group hug before explaining the different photos. The signed ones were said "Martha Bessel" more than anything else, but ones where she laid down were more artistic, more eye capturing. Truthfully, it didn't matter what any of them looked like. Martha was scared of them and what they could do.

Outside of the warehouse, the three of them had walked to a close by field, where Big Frank was still in sight, but Melitta and Ilse couldn't hear the loud happenings anymore. They carefully piled the ten or so pictures onto the grass, standing around them in a curved line. Ilse pulled her lighter out and passed it to Martha, who should do the honors.

She swiftly ignited a flame, watching herself crumble and turn to dust. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So like, I don't want to say that I condone child pornography, but sexual photos of minors doing sexual things are VERY different than what Martha did in this chapter. She was forced to grow up too soon and this was a way for her to take it back with two people she trusts. I don't recommend doing something like this IRL unless you're of age, but I promise that this isn't going to end badly for Martha. All the pictures are in fact deleted (There isn't going to be some weird "But they weren't deleted off the camera!" or "Someone fixed the SD card!" or "Ilse and Melitta pocked spare copies!" or anything) and in this world, they no longer exist. There's not going to be a revenge porn plot, or Martha's dad finding them, or anything like that. The pictures are gone.  
> Please, for this chapter, remember that the characters are not the author.  
> I also don't condone living in an artist's colony, and it's really important to note that Ilse would only ever let her friends see the romanticized version of her life. She purposefully led them to the women's only room and helped them avoid all contact with the men there, and tried not to mention what she was going through. Ilse is living in an arguably really bad place that isn't healthy for her, but I haven't decided yet if that's something I want to expand on later. Let me know if you want to see more Ilse, actually, because she was a gem to write about.  
> I hope you enjoyed, this one was really fun to write! I wanted my girls just having a fun time with paint and shit, but also I want Martha to start to grow. I'm really into flower symbolism. I also narrowly avoided having to use the word "vagina"! That was fun! As always, I adore comments and kudos and you can reach me on Tumblr @goldenheartprincess and Twitter @ohmyenchantress.  
> Next update should come.... idk maybe this week?


	4. i was lying when i told you that i need you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After their day out, Martha falls asleep in Melitta's bed as she reflects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A TRIGGER HEAVY CHAPTER! Very minor mentions of child abuse, but heavy violence and homophobic slurs (q slur, f slur, and 'fairy' used in a derogatory way). Blood!!! Lots of it!!! Bobby Maler He's the Worst. There's also a little bit of violence FROM a character that we're supposed to like and I'll write about that in the notes. For that, tw domestic violence.  
> Title from Never Fall in Love by MØ

Chapter Four

The motorcycle roared to life and was considerably less daunting on the way back to the Rilows, where Martha planned to spend the night with Thea. As per usual, they stayed up, exchanging chatter that was equal parts meaningless and more important than every star in the sky. It was the way they liked their friendship to be, an honest trade of importance and frivolous nothings. Both girls were dreadfully tired of being serious all the time, but also longed to have genuine human connections. Sleepovers were the boundary, the link between two such worlds.

"No, everything between me and Wendla is okay now," Martha was assuring the other, sitting up on Hanschen's otherwise empty bed. He had actually offered the Rilows the courtesy of his location for the night, which was surprisingly innocent for him; he said he was studying with Ernst Robel. The boy needed it; he was often failing and falling asleep in class, if he wasn't skipping with a joint between his thin fingers. "We talked about it. I understand what she wants, you know? She's just very sheltered."

"That doesn't mean that awful boy can hit her!" Thea had quickly adjusted her opinion on Melchior Gabor, jumping from lawless crush to distant memory to sworn enemy. Wendla, though often getting herself into trouble, was cherished by the group of friends, and there was an unspoken agreement to protect her from herself and others when the situations arose due to her curious and playful nature. "It disgusts me to think about, honest."

"He's horrible," she agreed, nodding. "The whole thing makes me sick to my stomach to think about." This phrase spurred a question that she hardly remembered to ask, mind still reeling from her breathless and undescribable afternoon with Melitta. "Speaking of sick, where were you all day? You look fine, but you weren't in school."

"Just playing hooky," Thea shrugged with a mischievous and convincing grin. "Too afraid that if I went into school, I'd beat the everloving shit out of Gabor. It was more for his sake than mine though; I'd risk that suspension in a heartbeat."

"That's fair." If Martha had Thea's undeniable muscles, she probably would have launched herself at the boy in gym class, or at the very least 'accidentally' hit him with a basketball. Unfortunately, she was about as coordinated as a drunk mouse with one arm. "You could always tag team with Hanschen and Melitta; I'm sure they'd be up for the job. Not that I condone violence, of course." She wasn't exactly a pacifist, but if someone deserved it, she wasn't against a little roughhousing. Although, she was still torn as to whether or not he did deserve it at this point; after all, Wendla had asked him for the favor, to an extent. It was a morally grey line that made her head spin, something that neglected to think about because no matter what she decided to believe, her opinion made no difference in the lives of her friends.

"That's too unfair a fight!" Thea giggled, knowing that Melitta had played field hockey for years and Hanschen got a lucky metabolism and taste for protein shakes. "He'd get his ass whooped. Tempting."

The conversations continued, overlapping and flowing into each other like the mouth of many streams, tangents sprouting into thoughts and other conversations as they promised each other to loop back to the topics they'd quickly forget as they moved on. It was almost like loving, the way they would forget the details and focus only on the overlying ideas and the impacts those ideas and general terms had on their hearts.

It was around two in the morning when Thea finally fell asleep, and Martha bit her lip as she cursed herself for creeping out of the room.  _ You're fucking ridiculous,  _ the voice in her head told her.  _ She's bored of you; you're her pity project. Not her friend. And certainly nothing more. _

Martha cared for nothing less than she did for the doubt echoing in her mind, as she knocked cautiously on the white door to Melitta's room. It was bare, with no residue from stickers or signs like Hanschen and Thea's door, which had clearly been a canvas of sorts for them growing up, and wore a "Caution: Keep Out" sign on it. 

With a grin, Melitta opened the door and beckoned Martha inside, silently closing it behind her. "I've been waiting for to you show for hours; for a second there, I thought you weren't coming at all."

The younger girl's cheeks flushed at the idea of Melitta impatiently awaiting her arrival, no, at the very idea of Melitta wanting her there. Melitta wanted her. Someone wanted her. Just looking at the other, with her pale skin and narrow eyes, Martha felt the room spin. "Thea was just really talkative tonight." Martha signed, awkwardly chuckling. 

"I'm surprised her fingers don't just fall off," Melitta replied, walking backwards to her bed, where her laptop lay open to various social medias that she had been flipping through until her company arrived. She shut it, wanting to focus on Martha. "Today was wild, wasn't it?"

"Understatement of the year," Martha avoided Melitta's eyes, recalling how close they had become in just that day, both physically and emotionally. Just remembering Melitta's brushes swirling across her skin gave her goosebumps, a flood of warmth rushing through her. "I feel unstoppable." It was the best way to describe the strength she had gained from the entire experience. Remembering what the final photographs looked like when they were done sent a satisfied shudder to her fingertips.

"And you weren't uncomfortable at all?" Melitta asked, concerned for Martha at all times. Melitta lived her life on the thin line between pushing someone out of their comfort zone and making them uncomfortable; she wanted to make sure that Martha was always on the proper side, but willing to grow as well and to try new things. 

"I was chilly at first, you know, being naked and everything. Does that count?"

The girls laughed, and Martha snuggled herself into one of Melitta's thick fleece blankets. Not only were the walls covered in clothes, there were at least three blankets on top of her duvet and sheets. Martha soon found herself comfortable, eyelids heavy, as she positioned herself next to Melitta. She kept her arms free, outside of the grey fuzzy cocoon she wrapped herself in, just to keep the conversation going.

"You look tired," Melitta commented, more worried than offending. It was true, heavy bags under Martha's eyes gave her exhaustion away. She was often very behind on sleep, for obvious reasons. It was hard to even close your eyes in the Bessel house, but there, in Melitta's blankets, she had never felt safer. "Can I play with your hair?"

Martha secretly loved anyone playing with her hair, but nobody ever did because of her known aversion to touch. That was disappearing as the days went by, especially for Melitta and it never even applied to her hair in the first place. "Oh my God, yes!" Martha rolled to face away, pulling the blankets up around her since her new position would already make conversation impossible. Melitta's nimble fingers began to work, untwisting Martha's braids as they ran through her curls. Shivers found their way down Martha's spine as she closed her eyes, breathing in deeply. She was never more relaxed as she was in that moment, with someone she trusted carefully French braiding with her knees pressed against Martha's back.

It was the smallest connection between them, but it wasn't more than a few seconds before Martha fell fast asleep. Melitta continued her work, watching the other peacefully rest. She had never seen her friend so calm before, and could only assume that she hadn't slept so soundly in years. The thought of Thea waking up to see Martha missing crossed her mind, but she couldn't wake up Martha, not like this. Not with the entire world having rolled off her shoulders in one night. Melitta swore to herself to wake up Martha in a few hours, right before she knew Thea would wake up. Just that small amount of slumber could do wonders for Martha, and Melitta owed her that.

Another thing Melitta realized as she finished the braid was how beautiful Martha looked. Without paint covering every inch of her body or worry adorning her sallow cheeks, she was simply stunning, in a quiet sort of way. Melitta never noticed it before, the way that Martha looked like a governess from some old movie musical, with the silent poise of royalty. A few blemishes had appeared on her skin, on her forehead in the shape of a triangle, but Melitta believed even they were beautiful. On Martha, they looked like stars.

Melitta cursed herself for objectifying Martha, afraid of being something that Hanschen was so often accused of.  _ Don't fall for the straight girl,  _ she warned herself, recalling the time that her younger brother came home from school the year before with a bloody nose.

"Don't fucking ask," he said, slamming his backpack on the kitchen counter as he marching up the stairs. The rotten brown blood had began to harden, but Melitta was afraid of an infection as well as whoever did it. She couldn't help but assume it had to do with his sexuality. It was either that or he got in a fight defending his sisters; that would be strange, as he rarely tried to settle things so primitively.

"Hanschen!" She called after him, only using his full name as a term of affection, although it struggled to reach out of her throat. "You need to clean that!"

He had slammed his door by that point, and she swore she heard a yelp, a sob maybe. She dashed into the bathroom like a  mad phantom, pulling supplies - cotton pads, hydrogen peroxide, bobby pins - from cabinets and returned to his door, beginning to pick the familiar lock. She learned how to do it in middle school, when Thea had snatched her phone out of her hands and ran away, knowing that was the only way to steal it while it was unlocked.

When she burst into his room, he was seated on his bed with silent tears mixing with the dried blood. "Bobby Maler," he said, sniffing. Melitta knew him well; more than she cared to admit to Hanschen, or to anyone else for that matter. They kept their relationship hidden. "I thought he- I thought he was making a move on me. And- And I- God, I'm so stupid."

Hanschen wasn't known for getting down on himself, or for showing any emotions since he came out. He didn't want to be a stereotype, he said. Wanted to be the straightest not-straight kid ever. Thought he would stop shit like this from happening.

Regardless, Hanschen had kissed the other boy, pulling the edge of Bobby's shirt towards his, pressing his lips firmly against the others. Bobby pushed back, landing Hanschen's back against the locker room wall with a force that Hanschen found himself attracted to. The kiss lasted  a moment longer than it should have, and Bobby broke apart, slurs falling from his wet lips. 

"Fucking queer, what the hell?" He had said, landing a firm punch in Hanschen's gut as he doubled over in pain, both from the hit and his heart shattering. The room spun around him as he tried to focus on Bobby's face, a layer of sweat beading on his forehead. His eyes were dark slits as his eyebrows wove into a heavy scowl. "Don't try to spread your faggot shit to me!"

Hanschen was choking on his words as he slid down the tiled wall, fighting to stand up. He looked up at Bobby with confused terror, replaying every single given to him through the last week. "I thought- I thought you were-"

"What? A fucking fairy?" Bobby laughed, pulling Hanschen back up to his eye level by his collar, switching to his left hand, preparing his right hook. Hanschen could tell that was the reasoning behind using his non-dominant hand and swallowed, tears forming in his eyes as he kept his mouth shut. Say nothing. It had been his strategy for years. Say nothing and nothing will happen to you. "Accept the fact that nobody's going to fuck you. No guy is as queer as you and no girl wants to screw a cocksucker."

"You've been flirting with me all week!" Hanschen protested against his better judgement, spitting out his words without thinking. Bobby's fist made immediate contact with his nose as his vision went fuzzy and his heart fell in his chest, a crack terrifying him. He almost cried, salty tears stinging the wound. Not until he was alone, he promised himself. Another hit. Another. He could hardly contain crying, a few screams escaping his throat until it felt raw.

"Why the hell would I do that?" Bobby said, dropping the boy onto the cold floor and walking away, picking up his backpack and scoffing. "I have a hot piece of pussy ready to fuck whenever I want her. The last thing I want to put my dick in is you. Talk to me again and I'll break your fucking neck. So long, fag."

And with that, Hanschen was left on the floor until an angel in a gray sweater with a kind smile tried to help him to his feet. He shoved Ernst away, hands on his shoulders and throwing him against the wall like Bobby had done to him. He was too proud to for Ernst to see him at his weakest point, and seeing what he had done when the other let out a shriek as he too hit the tile, Hanschen cried once more and ran. Ran to the parking lot as fast as he could, guilt pooling in his stomach. Kissed Bobby. Pushed Ernst. Hated himself. None of these had ever happened before, nor did he want them to happen again.

He didn't mention the arrival of Ernst to Melitta, just the violence and strings of obscenities that made her heart crack in half. If she could have left Bobby, if she truly could have, she would in an instant. For Hanschen. She knew that wasn't an option yet, or she'd be the one with the broken neck. She said nothing, just scraped the crusted blood off of his face, cleaning the cuts with a steady hand.

The moral of his story had followed her, as the day replayed through her head as she silently watched Martha sleep beside her. She wasn't there, but she could see Bobby's fist against Hanschen's face, a face she had grown up taking care of. Wiping peanut butter off of when he tried to eat a sandwich for the first time. Drying tears when Wendla rejected him in Kindergarten. The face covered in blood, a bruise shading his dead eyes. 

She learned a lesson, and she learned to hate the butterflies in her stomach as Martha breathed. She imagined stabbing each of them with a knife, framing their wings on her wall. "HERE LIES MELITTA RILOW'S HEART" she would write under their display, engraved in a tombstone.

Moral, lesson, whatever you want to call it. It was carved onto Melitta's soul for the rest of her life. She could never forget it, and it closed her eyes that night so she would stop looking at Martha, because she couldn't stop picturing Martha throwing her against a wall with a terrifying fire in her eyes and power in her fist.

The message written on Hanschen's face that day in blood was clear as day: fall for the straight one and you're as good as dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Hanschen pushes Ernst. There's no excuse for physical assault, BUT this does not suddenly make Hanschen a 'bad guy'. I try to write morally grey characters (except Martha's she's perfect), and Hanschen SHOULD NOT have shoved Ernst into a wall. I wrote this slightly as a parallel to Melchior and Wendla, as Hanschen and Ernst are their foils. Hanschen and Melchior have both physically harmed the person they are interested in at this point in my fic. However, Melchior, as we know, enjoys it and will then continue to physically (and then sexually) harm Wendla. Hanschen, on the other hand, did not enjoy it and barely recognized that it happened, as he just had the shit beat out of him. Hanschen and Bobby's fight happened a year before the canon time of my fic; back when Melitta was dating Bobby (which will be covered more as the fic continues). In that year, Hanschen and Ernst have deeply discussed that day and all has been forgiven. That said, if your partner hits you, uh, leave.
> 
> Please leave comments! I didn't really get any on the last chapter and honestly, that was a little discouraging and kept me from writing this one. My amazing Tumblr friend, Rhi, was the one who really inspired me to keep writing. The best thing you can do for your fic authors is leave comments!!! Thanks for reading!
> 
> Note: next chapter... is going to be more emotionally angsty than physically angsty if that makes sense. And less flashbacky. But probably worse.


	5. a drama that you struggle to erase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melitta accidentally breaks Martha's heart, and it's up to all three Rilows working together to put it back together again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings: There's a lot of mentions to sexual and physical abuse, along with a flashback that includes more emotional abuse than anything else. It's not the easiest to read, but it's not as hard as the second chapter.  
> Title from Role of a Lifetime from Bare: A Pop Opera

Rough hands. Ruthless shake. Eyes popping open with the alarm of a burning house, sensing a fire that wasn't around except in the anger of one Thea Rilow. Martha sat up straight at her touch, rubbing her eyes open as she fought to regain consciousness. It had been ages since she'd rested so heavily, completely surrendering herself to dreams and drooling slumber. And now as she refocused, she noticed Melitta's guilt-ridden pout as she fiddled with her thumbs, Thea standing at the edge of the bed with an impatient foot tapping.

"Aren't you going to explain?" She signed, eyes certain to roll out of her head. It was then, at the distrust igniting in Thea's betrayed breathing, that Martha realized how the scene appeared.

"It's not what it looks like," Martha scrambled out of the bed, signing like her life depended on it. "We didn't do anything." It wasn't as if Thea had any reason to be jealous or personally affected if they had done something in the category of anything, as Thea and Martha weren't romantically involved in the slightest, but it did appear somewhat harsh in Thea's eyes.

"Sure you fucking didn't," Thea's fingers flew in a rage, faster than Martha or Melitta had ever seen them. "Right, so, Melitta's cool and older and that's why you think it's acceptable to leave me in the middle of the night to fuck my sister, is that it?"

Melitta's quiet embarrassment transformed into offended anger as she replied, "We didn't fuck! Thea, stop being a stupid bitch and maybe just understand that sometimes Martha doesn't want to be around you. You're insufferable, truly."

The guest in the house was torn between the sisters, who both looked equally prepared to pounce on each other's throats. "You're not a stupid bitch," she assured Thea, before turning to Melitta. "And that's not why I came over here in the slightest." The very thought that she didn't enjoy Thea's company astounded her. She couldn't, of course, reveal her true emotions and motivations for finding herself in Melitta's bed, but she refused to let such a controversial and untrue theory fly for another second. 

"No, I am a stupid bitch!" Thea responded, adding a middle finger at the end of her phrase. "I actually thought that Melitta could keep it in her fucking pants for one of my friends, and maybe not take advantage of her. You just chose the first girl who thought about experimenting and went for it, didn't you?"

Melitta's cheeks flushed blood red as she bit her lower lip to stop from screaming. Volume was always a tempting release for her pent up energy, noting that half the house couldn't hear, but she needed to stay focused. "I would never do that to Martha! I swear, Thea, I have absolutely no interest in her like that." The words fell from her fingertips in a way that she couldn't control, so adamant in proving Thea wrong and losing all sight of the beauty standing in front of her. "The very idea that we would do anything like that is absolutely repulsive to me. She's fun to talk to, and that's all we do: we talk."

Although she was born deaf, Martha swore she heard her heart fall to the floor below and shatter. 

It was as if the entire world had drained color, Melitta's snarl painted forever against castle walls in lifeless hues of grey. It wasn't the idea that Melitta didn't want to screw her; Martha didn't see herself in as sexually appealing in any way. She couldn't imagine someone getting aroused by looking at her; although, unfortunately, it had been known to happen. She told herself that wasn't her fault; it was a thin line and she never knew which side she was on. Was she too young to think about being sexy? Was she too old to have a choice? Was her entire sex appeal based on being a child and how was she supposed to fix that?

But to be repulsive, to be so vile and morbid that one would respond to the idea of screwing you with the same disgusted expression as if someone described the decomposing corpses of every dead animal or human they had seen in their lives? And by someone that Martha adored and had risked so much for? That was more hurtful than anything else she could have possibly imagine. The entire memory of the previous day had been altered in a heartbeat; it didn't seem like Melitta wanted Martha to feel beautiful, but instead cover her with paint to allow people to look at her without wanting to carve their eyes out.

Martha had never felt uglier.

"I guess I'm the stupid bitch, then," Martha signed as tears welled in her eyes and began to spill down her cheeks with no regard for the time or place. She began to charge out of the room, adamant on walking home or just letting her unlovable body rot on a park bench, maybe moving in with Ilse to feel like the world didn't have to see her for who she was, possibly even turn to her father for a shred of self love that she couldn't provide for herself.

And Melitta's hand landed on her forearm, fingers wrapping around her wrist as she yanked the girl back, wanting nothing more than for her to stay, just a moment. She let out a shriek, forgetting about anyone else in the world outside of Martha. Thea watched her mouth convulse as some sound must have come out, and Hanschen had heard it, awoken from the restless sleep he tried to get. He had slept on the couch for the night as he assumed Martha would have been in his own bed. At his sister's wail, he raced up the stairs to see the fuss and Martha pushed past him, fleeing the scene as she cried.

"What the fuck did you say to her?" Hanschen asked Melitta for a moment, and as she opened her mouth to reply, he realized he had no cares about her answer and left, running after Martha.

The Rilows had much to talk about.

First, the devoted sisters.

"You didn't fuck her," Thea slowly fingerspelled out, still processing what was happening. 

Melitta would have shot a glare and replied with "no shit" if she wasn't so filled with indescribable guilt. "I didn't."

"And you don't want to," Thea understood, almost, as she sat across her sister on the bed, still warm from Martha. "You might, someday, but you just want to love her."

"I want her to be loved," Melitta clarified. "And I'd consider myself blessed to be the one to do it." She tried to wrap her head around everything she had said. She never meant the words to fall from her lips, coated in sugar and poison. It was all too easy for her to have said them and she focused for a moment, digging as deep inside her as she could, trying to discover where in her stone heart they had come from.

"I have absolutely no interest in her like that."

Bobby Maler stood before her, in their living room, screaming at her. "How dare you question how much I love you? You should be grateful that someone like me even fucking looks at you, let alone loves you!"

She dropped her phone, open to Instagram where he had commented explicit requests on Anna Wheelan's vacation photos. "I'm… I'm sorry!" She cried out, backing away towards the wall. "I'll never question you again, I'm sorry."

"You should be, pathetic bitch," he hissed, taking a step towards her just to watch her take a step back, seeing how far he could push her, seeing what she would look like if she broke. "You're absolutely repulsive to me sometimes. You know that? You will never find anyone who gives half a fuck about you. I am the best shot you have at a happy life and you accuse me of this shit?"

"Bob- Bobby, please, calm down for just a moment." she tried to reason with him, gently resting her hands on his tense shoulders in hopes of de-escalating the situation. His muscles relaxed instantly at her touch, realizing how loud he had been shouting and noticing the sweat beading on his forehead. "I love you and this isn't you."

"You're not going to leave me, are you?" His voice had dropped to a soft whimper, eyebrows upturned with a heavy heart. "I don't know I would do without you, baby. I'd kill myself."

She swallowed. "I'll never leave you. I promise."

As she stared into the distance, softly crying as she sat on Thea's bed, Melitta recalled how she was convinced she was going to die that night. And the night after. And a week later. It was at her unusually calm tears that Thea understood.

"Bobby really fucked you up, didn't he?"

To most, the comment would be insensitive. To Melitta, it was charming and witty and exactly what Melitta needed to hear. "Yeah," she almost laughed, a smile shoving it's way onto her face. "he really did."

* * *

Hanschen, although not impossibly fast, had much longer legs than Martha and quickly caught up to her, taking wide, awkward strides. "Martha!" Her name-sign felt almost foreign to him, as if he was learning a new word for the first time. He didn't know her as well as he probably should, being the only Rilow at this point who wouldn't take a bullet for her. He knew nothing of who she was, really; he simply knew her as the girl who slept in his bed sometimes and enjoyed the company of his sisters. The second point allowed him to believe that she was nobody he would care to be friends with. "If I know Melitta, she didn't mean any of that."

"Then maybe you don't know her!" Martha stopped in her tracks, having only made it a few blocks from the Rilow's driveway. "I've never seen her so serious about anything in my life."

"I have," Hanschen said, recalling the day that he tried to kiss Maler. "And that wasn't it. You like her, don't you?"

Not being able to meet his, Martha's gaze immediately gave her away as she struggled to find the most convincing ways to refute this hypothesis. "She's a dear friend, but I wouldn't want anything more than that, certainly nothing along the lines of love."

"Sure, and by that logic, Ernst is only my dear friend."

"You're in love with Ernst Robel?"

"So you admit that you're in love with Melitta," he smirked, thoroughly proud of himself for twisting each of their words, even though that included outting his boyfriend. Ernst was always begging him to tell his sisters about it anyway; he didn't want to be out, exactly, but he desperately wanted a connection with Hanschen's family, which was hard as long as that thought he was just an idiot stoner. He was an idiot stoner, but he was  _ Hanschen's _ idiot stoner.

"Yeah, of course I am! I am desperately, madly, and wholeheartedly in love with Melitta Rilow!" Martha couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous she felt finally admitting, not only to another person, but to herself that all of her feelings she had tried so deeply to deny were not only immensely real, but unstoppably powerful. "That's really not important right now, especially as she so clearly doesn't feel anything close to the same way. But Robel? Really?"

Hanschen rolled his eyes, almost giddy to finally gush about the stupid boy who ruined his life by making him feel things. "Yes, he's a little shit and a total pain in my ass, but I adore the fool more than I'd like to tell you. Don't ask how it started, because I'm not going to tell you. It's a terribly embarrassing story that I don't care to repeat. Does Melitta even know you like girls?"

"I haven't mentioned it explicitly, no." Martha swallowed. "I didn't want to do a whole big 'coming out' thing. Not that there's anything wrong with that," she signed quickly, recalling the dozens of "PROUD BISEXUAL" sheet cakes that Hanschen had brought into homeroom a few years prior. "It's just not my style. I don't… talk about myself. Or personal things."

"If you hadn't noticed, we have that in common," Hanschen laughed. He hadn't told anyone about his secret nine month relationship until now, and that was simply to make this arguably strange girl feel a little bit better. "So is there a chance that Melitta thinks you're straight?"

"If she's utterly clueless and blind, I suppose."

"I have news for you then, Bessel." His eyes, deeply kind in a way that reminded Martha of both of his sisters, told him that Melitta was, in fact, clueless and blind. "Everyone's straight until proven otherwise," he said, biting his tongue back so hard that he could almost taste the unfortunately familiar metallic blood dripping down his tongue. "If I know her, she's not letting herself get close."

"Has she told you she likes me or something?"

"No, but she doesn't tell me anything. I didn't know about Bobby until five months into the relationship," he confessed, bile rising in his throat. The name felt rusty in his mouth, almost a slur, or some other forbidden word that he was no longer supposed to say. "How… How much do you exactly know about Bobby?"

Maler wasn't a topic that frequented their conversations. It was as common to talk about him as it was to talk about Martha's father; as in it hardly happened and it was uncomfortable for all parties when it did happen. "I know him and Melitta went out for a while. At least a year. And I know that they hooked up under the bleachers one time. I've heard that… he cheated on her."

"It was a bad relationship," Hanschen sniffed, toeing the line between telling Martha what she deserved to know about the girl she loved and betraying his sister's trust. "Violence wasn't unheard of. Sometimes I'd be upstairs when they got home and I'd hear it. They assumed I was at a party or something and I wouldn't do anything. Just put on headphones, sometimes." He was ashamed, Martha realized, but she didn't truly blame him. She and Hanschen both knew that he was powerless; the more confident guy in school who never let anyone so much as look at him the wrong way was undeniably powerless compared to Bobby Maler. If he tried to intervene, he would have gotten either himself of Melitta killed.

"I had no idea," She admitted, posture crumbling as she began to cry. Her sobs were heaving, powerful cries shaking through her core. Hanschen silently wrapped her into a loose hug, gently rubbing her back as she cried into his hoodie.

His touch would linger, she knew, and she would feel his handprint on her back in the weeks to come, but she needed to be held. If that was the cost, she would pay it.

* * *

 

Thea and Melitta had moved their conversation to the dining room, where their parents had begun to serve a nice, family breakfast after waking up a few minutes prior. Mr. Rilow was a man of few words, another deaf member of the family. Because of this, he privately considered Thea to be his most beloved child. Not only was she the baby of the family, but she was more than happy to connect with her father without talking, just playing games of chess in the study or enjoying ice cream with him on a summer's day. Melitta preferred more adventure than he was comfortable with, and suspected that he only bought her a motorcycle to keep her away and occupied. As for Hanschen, his relationship with his father was only as strong as Mr. Rilow's acceptance of his son's sexuality which is to say, it hardly existed.

He sat at the head of the dining table as his wife finished the pancakes, flipping them to golden brown perfection. "Did Hanschen ever come home last night?" he signed, knowing that his son was often slipping in and out of the house.

The daughters exchanged nervous glances, telepathically deciding what story to go with. "Yes, he slept on the couch since Martha was in his bed." Thea half-lied, hoping her moral compass wouldn't break. "She went home for breakfast. She was feeling ill and didn't want to be a bother, but Hanschen's walking her home."

Melitta smiled at her sister, thankful that she wasn't about to throw her under the bus. She wished that Martha and Hanschen would burst through the door at any moment and they could say she was feeling better with the fresh air. They could all eat their goddamn pancakes like a normal, nuclear family and discuss what a gentleman Hanschen was and how much they adored Martha.

"What a gentleman!" Mrs. Rilow called from the other room, just as Melitta had predicted. If they only knew half the shit their kids got away with, they would surely drop dead on the stop. As much as her younger siblings pissed her off, Melitta would go to the ends of the earth to protect them. And she did. The ends of the earth were her homes, where she would camp out and dream of Thea and Hanschen being lucky enough to survive for another day.

The front door opened, and only Hanschen entered. He ran a hand through his wind-swept hair and flattened his lips into a dissatisfied line. Even after his hug with Martha, she thought it was best that she returned home as to not upset Thea and Melitta, who she assumed were still fighting. She didn't consider it a fight over her, but she did entirely blame herself for their plight. 

"Is Martha feeling any better or is she still sick?" Melitta asked him, as to slyly tell him about the lie they had established in his absence. The three had become will rehearsed in their antics and games, knowing how the other's thought and used it to an advantage of the team.

He shook his head as he took his seat, across from Thea, and poured himself a glass of orange juice. "She was close to fainting on the way home, I'd say." he signed once he took a sip. "She was apologizing as if her life depended on it."

"She has no reason to feel sorry," Melitta replied, guilt bubbling in her gut at a rate that she wasn't used to. "It's not her fault that she started to feel sick."

"I know that," Hanschen snapped. "Maybe you accidentally made her feel as if it was. At any rate, she feels horrible now. Her stomach again."

"Father, may I be excused?" Melitta asked, already pushing her seat back as if his answered mattered a whit to her. He agreed as everyone at the table was aware that she was going to leave anyway, but if he said yes, it might give the illusion that he had half a say in anything that happened. Without another word or moment's hesitation, Melitta grabbed her helmet off the coat rack by the front door and her keys, making a run for her bike.

There were few times that Melitta thoroughly enjoyed the novelty of riding her motorcycle, as the wild, heart beating out of your chest feeling disappeared and faded after riding it to and from school every day for years. This, the most important ride of her life, felt different although she had yet to know of its significance. She only planned on going to Martha's and apologizing. She never planned for reality, something she wasn't used to. In the stolen moments on her bike, with the wind dancing in her hair and blood pumping in her ears, she found herself daydreaming.

She envisioned herself groveling, swearing up and down to Martha that she didn't mean it, that something overcame her, that she truly cared for the girl and sometimes Bobby Maler, who didn't know the first thing about caring, took over her thoughts. She would never want to blame her past for the way she's acting now or pretend like something wasn't her fault because of what Maler did to her, but she couldn't ignore how much he affected her daily life and likely always would. 

The first time the effects of abuse hit it, it wasn't unlike a truck.

She had forgotten to take her meds one morning, as she was rushing out the door too fast to remember the fragile pill. It wasn't until midnight that night that she remembered, when she was clutching her pillow and sobbing like she never had before. Just a day without an antidepressant sent her spiraling, and it wasn't a pretty sight. With tear soaked pillows and a human need to be held, she texted her mother who was often awake at that hour with a sewing project in hand, explaining what had happened.

"I shouldn't have forgotten," she wrote, blaming herself for her own lapse in memory. "And now I'm just feeling really, really awful. Could you come up here, maybe? And fall asleep with me?"

Within seconds, Mrs. Rilow was at the doorway. She took the right side of the bed, a gentle hand rubbing Melitta's back as she cried. "I'm sorry," she whimpered between coughs. "I know my bed isn't comfortable and whatever and you're rather be sleeping-"

"No, my princess," she said, soothing her treasured daughter. "My job is to be there for you went you most need it. And you need it. I'm more than happy to be with you. I love you more than you can fathom."

It was that moment the truck had steamrolled her.

She was so conditioned into believing that she had to earn love, that it was something one had to work for (and for someone as terrible as she, it was a lot of work) that she could hardly bare to accept her own mother's unconditional love. She felt like a burden, trying to remind herself that her mom had signed up for motherhood. All three children were planned and adored more than they knew. 

She felt hard to love.

And she would be feeling that way for the rest of her life.

As Melitta parked on the next street over from Martha's house, she balanced her helmet on the handlebars and made a run for the tree in Martha's backyard. It hung lazily over a balcony connected to Martha's room, which reminded Melitta of  _ Romeo and Juliet.  _

"Bessel, oh, Bessel!" She imagined herself calling out as she balanced one foot on a low hanging branch, pulling herself up. "Wherefore art thou Bessel? Deny thy father and refuse thy name!"

Denying her father was something Martha always dreamed about as she lay on her bed, staring up at the popcorn ceiling with wet eyes. Her room paled in comparison to Melitta's, still dressed up like it was when she was younger. Pale pink walls with a playful border of flowers surrounded her, with family picture frames hung from nails. She hated them, the grim reminders of who owned her.

"Or, if thou wilt not," Melitta muttered to herself as she tried not to focus on the sap drooling onto her shoulders or bark cutting into her palms. She hadn't climbed a tree in years and it was much less fun than she recalled. "Be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Rilow."

The irony of a Romeo and Juliet metaphor wasn't lost on her as she swung herself onto the balcony. 'Love' was a strong word and she had only ever used it with Maler, but she could see herself using it on Martha.

Martha fucking Bessel.

Demure and quiet, she was the last girl Melitta ever would have suspected herself of falling for. Damaged, yes, but wise beyond her years with a heart that refused to close, even when the entire world threatened to break it. It was strange, how Martha was the only person that had  _ ever _ made Melitta feel easy to love.

Love was a strong word.

Maybe that's what made Melitta like it so much.

"Look out your window," she texted Martha, who felt the buzz of her phone on the mattress. She looked up and ran to the balcony, wrapping her friend in a tight hug. If she took the time to visit, maybe Hanschen was right and she didn't mean any of it.

Martha's eyes were wide as she embraced Melitta, a jab of guilt in her stomach as she recalled the declaration previously made to Hanschen.

"What are you doing here?" she signed, closing the balcony door.

Melitta cocked a smile. "Something I should have done a long time ago."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took a bit of extra work to write, as it's mostly 3rd Person Omniscient and I really try to dig into everyone's minds at least once. The next chapter, fair warning, is going to be the most triggering, worst one yet, so I tried to have this one end on a somewhat happier note. It's just not going to last very long.  
> Fleshing out Melitta as a character and not just a plot device love interest for Martha was a fun thing to explore this chapter, especially focusing on her history with Bobby.  
> (Martha staring at the ceiling at the end is supposed to be a parallel of the first paragraph of this whole fic shhhhh)  
> (also I'm really into Bare right now can you tell)  
> (don't question why Melitta, who is clearly Romeo in this case, is the one quoting Juliet to herself)  
> (also: the story of Hanschen and Ernst getting together is based off a fic by ShippingEverything called "Or a Fortune for Your Disaster" so i highly recommend reading that because Hanschen is not going to tell anyone in this fic because he's very embarassed by it)  
> (leave comments please and thank you)


	6. she holds you captivated in her palm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martha and Melitta make strides in their relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Suddenly I See by KT Tunstall because I'm obsessed with that song right now, as my a cappella group is doing it.
> 
> Trigger Warning HEAVY! As far as I've planned, which honestly isn't as far ahead as you might think, this is the heaviest and darkest chapter. That said, it starts and ends on high notes.  
> Warnings for: Rape and assault, corrective rape, homophobia, internalized homophobia, physical, sexual, verbal, and emotional abuse. Mentions of abuse in the pasts of multiple characters, including incest. Readers will read just the audio of the rape, which arguably, is worse.  
> Nothing's in the most intense detail, but please be sensitive and careful with yourself and your limits. You know what you can handle better than I do.

Chapter Six

Martha's mind spun as it tried to focus on breathing in the fresh air, memorizing the smell of pine needles from one of the two trees in the backyard (as you can guess, not the one that Melitta climbed). Half of her was convinced Melitta was about to seize her, hands lightly curving around her neck as she would pull Martha in for a sweet, tender, kiss. But the other half, even the realist, told her not to get her hopes up. "And what's that?" she signed cautiously. 

"Ask to kiss you."

Martha must have seen it wrong, her own mind manipulating what was in front of her. "I'm sorry, what?"

Melitta flushed, starting to think that maybe Martha didn't feel the same way and that she looked stupid, climbing a balcony for no reason. What if Martha wasn't Juliet, but Rosaline? "I was hoping I could kiss you. I should have done that the first night you came into my room, but I was scared. I really wanted to though. And then painting you, and then last night, and I haven't stopped thinking about you for even a moment."

Melitta Rilow was the kind of girl who only felt emotions through her entire body, one thought illuminating every inch of her skin and letting it consume you. She didn't feel somewhat happy or sad; she was either ecstatic or broken with no in between. And all she had felt since the first night, when Martha caught her sneaking around the kitchen, was a single word that she thought was emblazoned on her forehead for the whole world to see.

_ Martha. _

The wind seemed to say her name, and the leaves most certainly thought of her too. She couldn't look at a single thing without tracing it back to this girl that she was absolutely smitten for. Every flower or fresh cookie or pale green field she saw seemed to whisper "Martha" and she never wanted it to stop. Her name was a prayer, a badge the Melitta would wear for as long as she could.

"So, can I kiss you?"

Martha, who imagined the moment more as Melitta climbing up and immediately pressing their lips together, adored the other for taking a moment to ask. It made the moment freeze in time and infinitely sweeter, tension rising as Martha's heart demanded to be loved.

"Please."

With a nervous smile, Melitta pushed a strand of hair out of Martha's face, behind her head and left her hand there, pulling the other's face towards hers as she gently kissed her, lips enveloping hers.

Martha,  _ as far as she was concerned _ , had never truly been kissed before. This was the first time that someone she cared deeply for returned the affection and kissed her like her lips were the air that Melitta needed to breathe, something she had been waiting and yearning for since time itself began. Martha kissed back, unsure what she was doing, but knew better than to force anything.

Melitta, picking up on cues that Martha wanted to deepen the kiss without knowing how, carefully opened Martha's mouth with her own and let her tongue slowly make its way inside, sweetly brushing against her own tongue. It was at that sweet, beautiful, uncomparable moment that they had both waited their whole lives for, to find someone who only wanted them to be happy and to be theirs, that Martha's bedroom door swung open.

At the sound, Melitta jumped away, breaking the kiss with a swallow as she backed away on the balcony. Martha, sensing something was wrong, turned around to see her father, scowling as he opened the balcony door, standing in the doorway as a shadowy figure, an omen of terror yet to come.

"After everything I've done from you," he growled, pulling Martha by the collar of her neck back into her room and tossing her onto the bed as if she were a doll any nothing more. "you go and turn yourself into a dyke?" He left the balcony door open and shouted for Melitta to leave. When he turned away, she simply hid behind the scaffolding and siding, as to be out of his field of vision.

She wanted to be there for Martha, yes, but a part of her was curious. She understood Wendla now, why she asked Melchior to do something unspeakable. She simply wanted to know what Martha was going through, and that was one way to do it. So Melitta stood, hidden, and waited. She couldn't see, but she could hear.

God, could she hear.

"I'll teach you right," Mr. Bessel snarled, thin sheets rubbing against each other, muffling Martha's short whimpers, but they stopped, as if Martha had given up and just laid flat on her back. "Fix you right up. Make sure you're not a sinner. The Lord never intended for that. He wants this. Don't you want to please the Lord?"

Read as:  _ Don't you want to please me? _

It was after an assortment of grunts that Martha began to stir again, undescribable groans and shouts escaping her lips. That was the sound that haunted Melitta as she found her hands pressed tightly over her ears. Even that wasn't enough. She could still hear the rare scream, mingled through whines. Melitta's imagination filled in the empty blanks, trying to piece together what could possibly inspire such a shattered shriek. It was a very rare thing to hear Martha; she could speak, but rarely did, in fear of what it would sound like to the rest of the world. She hated the feeling of making sound and not knowing what it was, only judging it by how tight it felt in her throat. So then this, both girls knew, was involuntary.

The sound of skin against skin, a slap followed by a yelp, echoed in Melitta's head. She hated herself for having stayed, but she thought Martha might need her after. Certainly, her dad wasn't going to make sure she was okay as he hit her again. His fingers wrapped themselves around her braids as he yanked and she cried out.

After a moment, accompanied by a series of moans, Melitta heard Mr. Bessel climb off of the bed, zip up his pants, and open the door again. "If I ever catch you like this again, I promise, it'll be far worse."

As he left and shut the bedroom door behind him, Melitta rushed into the room in a second's time, finding Martha staring at the ceiling with wet cheeks and her skirt hiked up to her waist. Out of courtesy, Melitta gently folded her skirt back down, but Martha jumped, startled at the touch. 

Martha then realized that Melitta was outside for all of that, wondering how much she had heard. "Melitta, you need to leave." she signed, sitting up and wiping away tears. Embarrassment flooded her cheeks as they flushed with heat, knowing that Melitta had heard her at her most intimate, her most private moments. Her skin almost glowed, juxtaposing against the sallow, heavy circles under her eyes and the lack of raw emotion inside. She appeared as a living corpse, despite Melitta's kiss having brought her to life just minutes before. "You shouldn't have stayed. We shouldn't have-"

"Don't you dare," Melitta said, taking Martha's hands to stop her from finishing her sentence before she began to sign herself. "You know he's wrong. He just wants you for himself. There is absolutely nothing wrong with what we just did. I didn't want to stay," she said, half lying. "but I thought you might need someone when he was done. Someone to care."

"He'll never be done." She sniffed, tying the discarded condom into a knot and dropping it into the trash can by her bedside. It was a habit, a chore that was too normal for her to be as disgusted by as Melitta was.

"I know that," Melitta agrees, as it would be pointless to try to tell her otherwise. "But you can be. I know you said you didn't want to move into the hayloft, but just in case, Thea and Hanschen have been helping me furnish it. They skipped school the other day to hit up garage sales because there was an ad in the paper for a four poster bed. It was relatively cheap, and there's also a nightstand that Hanschen built in shop class. Otto helped with that, and didn't even ask what they were making it for. And Thea, she and Anna stitched together a quilt in their sewing class."

Sure, there were obvious gender role problems in the classes, but the way that the kids had twisted the adult's lessons into something to fight against those same adults was incredible to Melitta, and even Melchior Gabor would agree if he knew anything about the situation. 

Although, Martha recalled he knew more than he should. "There's no electricity, but there's a lot of blankets for warmth and a crate of food under the bed. Nothing that needs to be in a fridge, just crackers and apples and such. Lots of nuts and protein, and a pack of water bottles." she continued to babble, unsure how much convincing Martha would need. "Um, we're still working on finding a dresser, but Thea and I both have trashbags full of clothes that we don't really want anymore or that we thought would look good on you."

It was how much work Melitta had put into this that sold Martha. This wasn't just some throwaway offer to sleep on a pile of hay, it was a plan that she had been working on for weeks, something that took time, money, and resources that Melitta had to fight for. Melitta would never have worked that hard on a charity case; she wasn't the sort of do-gooder that Wendla was. She only would have put that effort and love into something for Martha.

"Are you serious?" was all she could express, before bursting into tears and wrapping Melitta into a hug, knowing that for once, the touch wouldn't linger. Melitta felt like she belonged against her skin, like Martha was inviting her to create a home inside of the empty cathedral of her heart. Melitta held her for a moment, smiling, before breaking away for an answer. "I'll move. I'll get out of this place. Tonight. I don't have a suitcase or anything, is that okay?"

"That's the least of our worries," Melitta laughed, standing up and leading Martha off the bed. "Clear your duvet, we'll use your sheets. We'll need to move fast. Pack all your underwear, bras, and socks, since those aren't exactly things that Thea and I can give you." she laughed, pushing pillows and the duvet off while Martha pulling out her drawer and dumped it in the center of the bed with a grin, realizing that this was truly happening.

She liked her room in a way. It was aesthetically pleasing, but she couldn't enjoy any part of it since she was about four. Martha had a few possessions she'd want to actually keep with her; a childhood stuffed rabbit, a cheap silver necklace her mom bought her, and a postcard from a pen pal in America that she hadn't written in years. Melitta was smart enough to pack up her homework and backpack, so nobody at school would think that anything in Martha's life had changed. Martha put on a pair of sensible shoes and packed a pair of boots, as she was quite a bigger size than Melitta and Thea in this respect. After ten minutes of prep and throwing necessary items inside, the girls tied all four corners of the sheet together into a bundle, which they tied to the fitted sheet and duvet as to slowly lower it out of the balcony.

There were no windows on this side of the house on the lower level, so they were lucky as to not be seen through the living room. Once the bundle was safely on the grass, Melitta and Martha carefully climbed down the tree. 

"My mom's going to be here in three minutes," Melitta explained feverishly checking her phone. "She's on board with all of this, and helped pay for a lot of the stuff. Of course, she thinks Hansi and Thea were genuinely sick yesterday and bought the bed and stuff last weekend."

"I can't believe any of this," Martha said, pacing around the bundle as her heart beat with a new rhythm, a new purpose as it realized it was going to be free for the first time. "I can't believe I'm getting out, I can't believe you've been doing all this for me, and I can't believe you kissed me."

"You let me kiss you!" Melitta pointed out, just as shocked. "That wasn't something I expected! I thought you were straight."

"That little shit!" Martha laughed, mind turning to Hanschen's warning as the pick up truck parked on the other side of the street, blinking its lights to let the girls know it was there. 

"What?"

"I'll explain later."

Carrying the bundle in all four hands, they bolted across the backyard and through another backyard, between houses that they hoped wouldn't notice two girls of color running with a giant tied up sheet in broad daylight into the back of a truck. They piled into the backseat as Mrs. RIlow stepped on the pedal and took off through the neighborhood. 

"We're so happy to have you, Martha," she said with a kind smile just visible through the mirror as she drove. "Thea and Hanschen were really worried when you went home. Are you feeling better?"

"I've never felt better in my life, Mrs. Rilow," she signed as Melitta translated aloud. That was necessary in a car, as you can't sign and drive. Melitta acted as an interpreter between the two, creating conversation herself. "I can't thank you and your family enough, truly."

"It's just our family now," Melitta said and signed, speaking on her own behalf. "You're just as much a Rilow as me and Thea." It was common knowledge that the daughters were adopted.

The Rilow family was as complicated as you'd expect. Melitta, adopted from China as a baby, never knew her birth parents and was named by Mr. and Mrs. Rilow. She often felt disconnected from her culture growing up, especially compared to her little brother, who was conceived and born by Mr. and Mrs. Rilow. She expressed her concerns of 'looking different' and 'like she didn't belong' to her parents, and after a lot of discussions of what to do (and Melitta not listening when they said she did belong), they found Thea, who was going through the foster system very slowly, as very few families were willing to learn sign for a child. Lucky for Thea, all the Rilow's already knew it, as Mr. Rilow was deaf. Hanschen and Melitta grew up learning sign, and Thea was a perfect fit to be their little sister. She was mixed, half Japanese and half German. It was an odd family, and typically frowned upon by the rest of the small town. 

They had money, an assortment of children considered 'strange', and two different deaf members. They were too different to be treasured by the town, especially with the only out child in a 20 mile radius. If only they knew all three kids turned out to be some form of gay, they would have lost their minds.

It was a family that was closer and kinder than any other that Martha had known, and she'd wanted to be a part of it for as long as she could remember. She adored meals at their house, with sauerkraut one night and steamed rice the next. Mr. Rilow had learned, from various books and Youtube tutorials, how to make popular Japanese and Chinese meals for his daughters and the whole family to enjoy. Although they struggled to completely understand the disconnect from their respective countries, Mr. and Mrs. Rilow did their best to minimize it as much as possible. 

"Let the girl decide if she wants to be a Rilow," Melitta's mother warned, as her daughter silently translated and rolled her eyes. "Perhaps she's very happy being a Bessel and living in the old hayloft." Melitta elected to not repeat this to Martha.

"I'm not sure," Martha confessed. She didn't feel as if she wanted to be part of the family she never had; maybe the idea of family just wasn't for her. She had much to consider. "I certainly no longer want to be a Bessel. Perhaps just Martha, for now."

"What if you chose a name from a book or a story?" Melitta suggested, mind reeling. "I don't know what you read, exactly, but something could work really well, like Gatsby or Meany."

"Dickinson," Martha fingerspelled without hesitation. "Martha Dickinson."

"It's beautiful," she said.

_ You're beautiful.  _ They thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this update took so long, life got crazy. I'm a student producer, going to be a student director, a member of the aforementioned a cappella group, taking two AP classes, am vice president of my choir and founder/president of a writing club, and also applying Early Admission to colleges. So as much as I want it to be, Spring Awakening fics aren't at the top of my priority.  
> I also want to mention that there is INTENTIONAL parallelism between Hanschen and Melitta, specifically in the case that they both heard abuse happening (and are two of the only hearing characters in this fic) and both did nothing, despite unconditionally loving the victim.  
> There are lots of other literary elements and devices found in this fic, especially as AP English kicks my ass, and talking about it like you would a Shakespeare play or Dickinson poem is really fun to me.  
> Speaking of Dickinson, Martha got a lil gay at the end by calling herself that.  
> P.S. Becki stop changing your Tumblr URL challenge!!! It's @honeybeebecki now so go ask me stuff and bug me! Tell me headcanons or thoughts about this work or ask me for some!  
> 


	7. you're a cherry blossom, you're about to bloom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melitta shows Martha around the updated hayloft and Martha has a nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triggers: Blood, axe murderer implied, sexual assault mention, suicidal thought, the switch returns, and reference to a dead animal.
> 
> We're back! And gayer than ever!

No time had passed in the lifetimes since Martha last step foot into the hayloft. Images of Ilse dancing, Moritz and Hanschen chasing each other around the spider-web clad hay bales, and Wendla running her fingers through Anna's blonde waves flooded her mind as she recalled the way that they once all played together. In the center of the barn, on a small platform of hay, sat the four poster bed that Martha was promised, with delicate and familiar paintings along the wooden edges. Flowers danced, intertwined with each other over themselves, with vibrant yellows and teals.

"Ilse." Martha signed after running a hand over the sanded wood. "She painted this, didn't she?"

"She begged me to let her at it," Melitta laughed, following Martha towards her new room of sorts. Sure enough, a crooked, unfinished nightstand sat next to the bed, along with two full white trash bags, and a few crates of food. "After I told her what we were doing, she arrived on my doorstep with a bucket of her brushes and a few cans of paint. Didn't even lay down newspaper or anything. Mixed the colors directly on the wood."

"She's incredible," Martha commented. The bedspread was an ugly floral print, likely from some old lady's estate sale. A plastic laundry pin of knitted blankets promised warmth for Martha when she'd need it.

"We're a little bit worried about like, animals," she confessed. "We didn't really think about them and wanting to get your food. But we put like, bug spray around the outside, so we hope that works. I don't recommend leaving empty chip bags or anything around; you can throw them out at my house. Also, the ceilings are high enough that you could probably light a fire if you clear away enough straw, but candles are probably a safer bet. Thea has a bunch from her witch phase."

"Those crystals did really clear my energy, in her defense," Martha joked about it and how Thea wore a pentagram necklace for three weeks until Sonnenstich confiscated it. "Melitta, this is all too amazing. I don't know what I did to deserve this."

"It wasn't that hard, and we raised almost all the money by selling old paintings to the colony," she replied. "They really liked some of my stuff, and I wasn't using it for anything. God knows that you can only give 'handmade paintings' as Mother's Day gifts for so long."

"You didn't have to do that-"

"I wanted to. I've never been so sure about anything in my life."

"You're sure about me?"

The conversation that both girl had been anticipating had arrived with a subtle flick of Martha's wrist, and both of their hearts fell into a synced syncopated rhythm as doubts that the other one didn't like them at all clouded their rose-colored minds.

"I'm not one to be sure about people," Melitta began as Martha's face fell. "But I'm sure about you, don't get me wrong. I'm so confident that something, whatever it is between us is real and that I care for you like I don't care for anyone else in this world. I'm not.. I'm not the kind of person that says things very well."

"Are you serious?" Martha spun, gesturing at the room around them. "If this doesn't say, "You matter to me!", I don't know what does."

"Can I kiss you again? For real, this time?"

God, would the heat in her cheeks simmer for just a second? Martha hated how much that question took her breath away, how quickly she threw her guard down at the very thought of kissing Melitta. "The first time was pretty real to me."

"I worded that wrong, oh my God," Melitta said, panicked, as she had never felt so nervous and strongly about not fucking something up. Her previous relationships, although being difficult in their own rights, never got her as flustered and worried as Martha did. The very thought of screwing this up, making Martha hate her, it haunted her in ways that she couldn't properly discuss. "Like, in a way that neither of us would regret. Fuck, that's not what I want to say either." The words stumbled over each other, and she refused to let them get the best of her again. "I mean, like,-"

Words were harder, Melitta learned, to sign when a girl was kissing you, her fingers interlocked with yours in order to silence your various strings of mixed up phrases. Martha was soft, both in the texture of her lips and their pressure against Melitta's. After a long, gloriously sweet cotton-candy tasting moment, Martha broke away with a sheepish grin, having never kissed someone else before.

"I know what you mean," Martha said. "This place is so much more inviting. I'd much rather kiss here than in… my old room." She gazed around again at the wooden panels and chipped paint that made it feel more like a home than the Bessel House ever did.

"So, like, what are we?" She found herself asking, fingers moving faster than her mind did, almost a curse of knowing sign language as well as she knew to speak. "Are we friends who sometimes kiss?"

"If that's what you want-"

"No, not unless that's all you want." Melitta said, far more anxious than usual. She'd rather have stolen moments with her lips against Martha's than nothing at all. But in a perfect world? They would be together, in whatever way that meant. Nights spent holding each other, discussing whether or not ghosts or aliens were real, and too many kisses to count. Yes, Melitta Rilow wanted a romantic mushy gushy relationship and after a moment of thought, she wasn't afraid to admit it. "But I want us. To be a real thing. Like, girlfriends, I suppose. I really want to be with you in whatever way you'll have me."

Martha's eyes widened. The idea of a partner, a girlfriend, a lover- they were all distant fantasies. After all, she was too broken to be loved. Maybe half-loved would suffice and maybe Melitta could do it. Love seemed far away, like it lived on a cloud that would rain down on her someday, but for now, it was a bright summer's day.

"I've never had… anything real in my life," she responded, tears threatening to spill from her soulful eyes. "I've only had feelings, and so fucking many of them, and Melitta, nobody has ever cared for me before like you do. I never want that to go away. I never want you to go away."

Melitta, thrown into a world that she knew cared for her as much as a passerby cared for a slab of roadkill, had figured out very quickly that it didn't matter what she felt, because nobody wanted to know. Nobody wanted her love, her affection, her. If they did, it had nothing to do with who she was or who she would be, but what she looked like and what she was willing to do. Bobby fucked her up in more ways than she could describe. She was cold and distant because she believed she had no other choice.

Martha was the other choice.

Martha was all things gone right, someone who ignored when the world tried to harden her into the person that Melitta tried not to be. No, it wasn't the world. The world loved her. It gave her white clouds drifting by and cherry blossom petals falling into her hair. But what does it matter if the world loves you when your father does not? She, like Melitta, tried so hard to win the affection of a man that didn't matter.

Melitta mattered.

The two girls were hard to explain, they were free and trapped in their own right. They were softly hardened and bravely scared. They were oxymorons enough separately, but together, they were bright and unknown.

"I never will, I promise."

"Stay with me, tonight?" Martha said, recalling their previous two nights together and the way it made her face flush and heart soar, just being close to someone who could maybe, one day, half-love her.

Melitta had every intention to love her with her entire soul, to sweep together its broken pieces in a chance to love Martha just a little more every day.

"Of course," Melitta swore. "And all day."

And so they did.

For hours, without even thinking about it, they lazily spent the Saturday laying on each other, Martha's head in Melitta's lap, only judging the passing time by the light seeping in through the cracks in the ceiling. "We'll fix those before it starts snowing, I promise," Melitta said, thinking about plastic tarps as the cheapest alternative. She was also thinking about animal traps, and space heaters, and anything else to keep Martha safe. Melitta took her safety for granted, her parents' love for granted, but she could take nothing now. She had to give it all to this girl, this angel, to Martha.

Eventually, wrapped in wool and cotton, Martha found herself in the dangerous land of sleep, where the mind would betray her in vain fantasy, lying about everything it could think of in order to tell her what she felt and to scare her into shutting down.

It was the knock that woke her up, pounds against the barn door, as she leapt up from the warmth of the body next to her, which felt as if it had almost gone cold. A corpse might be a cozier alternative.

"Child, you best open the door right now before I beat you," he signed through the window, her villian, her nemesis, her father.

Her heart froze, as she turned to look at Melitta, waking her up for aid in the dire situation. When she pushed her girlfriend with just enough force to wake her, she sat up, replaced by the white, cold body of Melchior Gabor.

She let out a shriek, jumping out of the bed, before she even noticed the switch in his hand. A wolfish smile danced on his lips, and his fingers twitched around his belt buckle. The door had been pushed through, and Mr. Bessel entered with an axe, wielding it wildly and flinging his hate around with unadulterated swings.

Everything happened so fast, she couldn't focus on him chopping down the painted flowers, cutting Ilse's work into a pile of ashes as Melchior approached her. She screamed, throat bursting raw from the sound as he pushed her back onto the pile. His eyes spilled blood, gushing over his white cheeks. They appeared as dead as a shark, as dead as Martha wished she could be in this moment of horror and fear.

"Please, no!" she begged, sobbing and signing with an unfamiliar urgency. Her father couldn't be reasoned with, but she had a chance of protecting herself from Melchior. He was a student, a boy, a child. And for the longest time, a friend. Surely, he wouldn't hit her without her asking. Wendla asked, but Martha begged against such a vile and obscene act. "Please."

"I'll teach you to say please."

The switch hit her cheek as he threw up her dress, reaching his fingers underneath her-

A shake of her shoulders woke her up, as she felt a hot sweat coat her skin. She should have known it was a dream. It was obvious, looking back, as it is to awake from a dream. They always seem so real when it happens, but the moment you're conscious, it feels silly.

"Martha, everything's okay," Melitta insisted. "I promise, whatever you're dreaming about can't hurt you." Even so, Martha glanced to the barn door. All in one piece. The window was vacant. The bed was whole. Melitta was there, without a switch or ounce of hate in her hands. "Let me get you some water."

Melitta rose from the bed and pulled a bottle out of the plastic case near the crates, popping the top off to refresh Martha, who drank quickly and sloppily, dehydrated and desperate for the feeling of something real to satisfy her fears.

"It was Melchior," Martha explained, having never dreamed of him before, not since they were kids. "My dad was breaking into the barn, but he, he was hitting me with the damned switch. And his eyes were bloody and strange. And my dad broke the bed with an axe. I've never been haunted by such a dream before, Melitta."

"That's not going to happen," Melitta promised. "Nothing bad will happen to you, or anybody else for that matter in here. This hayloft is a safe haven. And Melchior Gabor can't ruin that. I promise."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this one. I justed finished the horror unit in my Creative Writing class and it seeped into my writing. One of the stories I actually submitted was the scene where Melitta heard the assault happen, but I changed Melitta to Romeo and Martha to Juliet. It was pretty fucked.  
> New Tumblr URL is @honeybeebecki so send me shit!


	8. 8. kiss me on the mouth and set me free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martha and Melitta go to school the next Monday and everything is beginning to change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE READ!  
> This chapter is /mostly/ really cute and positive, with great Marlitta moments. And then, very suddenly, the whole tone of the piece shifts back to dark and for the most part, triggering. This chapter and the next few tackle I Believe up to Left Behind (about). The hayloft scene is included in this, as set up by the last line of the previous chapter, and while it's very bad in itself, there's something that's going to happen with that that makes it worse. I don't want to spoil it, but start being cautious of triggers at the line "You got it," which is said by Georg (who purposefully only shows up at one point in this chapter/fic so that I can use him as a mark to tell you what's coming). I'm going to talk more about this at the footnote and also summarize what happens in case you don't want to read the actual text.

For once in her life, Martha doesn't dread going to school. The idea of lifting herself onto the bus stairs doesn't nauseate her and she certainly doesn't mind going to her classes, where she daydreams about Melitta with undeniable fondness. You didn't hear it from me, but there's a sketch on the back of her physics notes of her and Melitta in a cottage in the middle of the woods, picking flowers.

Martha never expected anyone to genuinely care for her in this way, so she was sure she would dive headfirst into a world of mushy, ooey-gooey romance without a second thought. As she left her Child Psychology class, Melitta was waiting against the door in a little black dress and her hair fastened in a messy bun. It was dressing up, at least for Melitta, but the most beautiful thing about her was the childlike grin. "Can I hold your hand?" she found herself signing. "Would that be okay?"

"You don't have to be so nervous," Martha assured her. "You can just take my hand. If I were to ever not want you to hold it, I would pull away and let you know. Same goes for kisses. Or anything, really."

Melitta's heart skipped a beat. Sex came to mind, as it naturally would, but she pushed the thought away. It wasn't the right time or place for it; of course, she would absolutely love to have sex with Martha at some point, but she didn't want to rush into something so intimate. Her second thought was to kiss her, but as she watched her classmates walk by, already having rotten opinions on her, she realized that neither girl was in a position to risk that.

Straight girls held hands all the time. There was nothing suspicious about that. "Noted," Melitta said simply as she interlocked her fingers with Martha's. The only downside was how hard it was to speak with one hand, but with fingerspelling and one-handed signs, they could get the vague gists out.

"Have you told Hanschen about us yet?" Martha asked, knowing that he would be their biggest fan. She was still genuinely surprised to have seen such a tender, understanding side to him after he followed her out of the house.

Melitta shook her head. "I didn't tell him or Thea anything more than you live in the hayloft now. But I think, considering I was in there all day Saturday, all night Saturday, and all day Sunday, that they got the hint."

"And Thea's okay with it? Really?"

Martha hadn't had a chance to speak to Thea about everything that happened since she left the Rilow house in tears. She would rather have a conversation about it in person, but they texted each other just enough to know that there were no hard feelings or unresolved tension. Honestly, they wouldn't be able to sleep if they thought the other was mad at them, even for a second. 

"Babe, I've literally been with you the whole time that all of this has happened." Melitta

laughed. "I know as much as you do." Martha's nose wrinkled at the nickname as she bit her lip to stop from smiling. Melitta noted this reaction and found it adorable.

"Oh, Martha you are here." Anna rolled beside her, speaking quickly as she wheeled between signs. "After I saw that Moritz wasn't in government class, I had to assume that you two were off somewhere. Maybe taking a raft out, calling him soulful. I assumed there would be poetry involved as well." Anna, ever the gossip, was hardly the most talented at picking up social cues. She was deeply talkative, and only ever paused if she forgot a sign or had to wheel forward. As Melitta unhooked her hand from Martha's and began pushing Anna's chair, she hardly had a reason to stop.

"It's really not like him to miss school," Martha mused, not commenting on what Anna was suggesting between the pair of them.  _ Why does everyone in this school always think that I'm secretly dating Moritz? I would tell them if that were the case. _ Ironically, she wasn't telling them who she actually was dating. Should she be? "Sure, he'll spend periods in the bathroom or fall asleep, but he always attends. I hope he's feeling well."

"After all those restless nights, his immune system must be collapsing on itself," Melitta commented. "The haunting legs of a woman!"

Truthfully, Otto should have learned to keep his mouth shut. He'd say anything he could to just have a longer conversation with Anna. They were both using each other, almost. He thought he had some upper hand by keeping her at the edge of her seat, always dragging out the gossip to make their conversations longer, so he could watch her interest grow with every word. She thought she had the power, as she convinced him that she was almost interested when all she wanted was the news on the boys. It wouldn't surprise Martha if the pair of them were actually sleeping together; especially considering how often Anna accused everyone else in her life of secretly having a relationship.

Regardless, once Melchior told Otto about Moritz' dreams, all of the girls knew within hours. They didn't have a group chat or anything, but they didn't need one. Anna trusted that they'd all spread the information to each other, as they always did.

"Don't laugh at him!" Martha insisted, a smile breaking over her face as she held back her own laughter. "We've all had bad dreams!"

"That's a  _ great _ dream."

"And we've all had those too, Anna," she stuck her tongue out.

Anna raised an eyebrow. "And what are yours about? Thea says that she dreams of a fireman rescuing her from a window."

First of all, that wasn't accurate at all and Martha knew that. Thea entrusted her with the true contents of said dream, and there were no men involved. "Please, if I told you, everyone would know within seconds. I love you, but I'm not telling you anything."

"I've never betrayed your trust!"  
Melitta snorted. "Anna, you literally told me the second that Martha got her period for the first time in 6th grade and how it leaked over her jeans."

With faux anger, Martha's eyes opened wide. "You promised you wouldn't talk about that anymore!"

"I wanted you to know in case you had a sweatshirt she could borrow!" Anna protested in defense of herself. She always had solid reasons as to  _ why _ she was a gossip, but that never changed the fact she was. Although they gave her a hard time, all of her friends treasured her and would never want her to change.

"Sure, that was it," Martha nodded sarcastically, enjoying how quickly things could go back to being normal. Her bruises were fading and Melitta got up early to help her with foundation to cover them. For that reason, Martha was sporting a spaghetti strap tank with capris and the world's biggest smile. As they wheeled Anna to her next class, Melitta slipped her hand back into Martha's.

"Meet me in the music wing bathroom next period?" she signed very small, angling her body so nobody else could see. It was the most vacant bathroom- the music teachers never let kids leave the room and it was too far of a hike for anyone else to willingly go to. Plus, there was usually a light scent of weed. Ernst Robel was rumored to have hotboxed it in sophomore year.

"Gladly," Martha promised.

Her teacher couldn't talk attendance fast enough, taking his sweet ass time to check over twice that Moritz was absent. After all, he had perfect attendance since 8th grade. She could hardly focus on her partner's, the boy she sat next to and passed notes to all through class, absence as she hurried to the music wing. The less time it took her to get down there, the more time she would have to spend with Melitta.

On her way, she passed Melchior's English class, and she froze. His eyes weren't bloody or leaking down his focused expression as he took notes on Ralph Waldo Emerson, and they certainly weren't dead. Perhaps a little bored with the transcendentalist views, but he looked very human.  _ Wendla asked him to beat her, _ Martha reminded herself. _ He only did what was asked of him. And the dream wasn't really him.  _ He was handsome, sure, but her trust for him was in short supply. Once he noticed her gaze from the hall, she booked it to the bathroom.

"Brandenburg's the worst at attendance, I know," Melitta said before Martha could explain herself, peeking out from one of the stalls. "I wasn't sure if it was you."

"What did you want to meet for?" Martha asked, playing coy as if it wasn't very obvious.

It wasn't sexual, necessarily, but Melitta had a need to touch and be touched. It was driving her absolutely crazy to watch Martha walk around all day and not be able to touch her as much as she would like, only dry fingers and sweaty palms. Sure, they only had a few minutes, but Melitta was touch starved.

She wasn't alone in craving intimacy, as Martha itched to kiss her, to throw her hands around her waist and keep them there, pressing their bodies together as closely as possible.

It was the moment before the kiss that drove them both wild.

With strength that Martha didn't know she possessed, Melitta picked Martha up and placed her on the edge of one of the sinks, letting her lips hover for a moment of ecstasy before kissing her like she truly wanted to. Martha hummed into the kiss, wrapping her legs around Melitta's waist. Melitta's hands were reaching for every inch of Martha, running up and down her back, never going lower than right above the fold of her jeans, saving those sorts of touches for a more suitable environment and a better moment. Martha's low moans heightened Melitta's grin as she pressed their mouths together.

"I have to get back to class," Melitta signed as she broke away, Martha's hands on her shoulders for balance. "I can only play the period card so often before they realize that it's been more than a week."

"Is this what having a girlfriend is like?" Martha sighed, pupils dilated. "Impromptu makeout sessions in the bathroom?"

"If that's what you want having a girlfriend to be like, I am more than happy to oblige, babe."

Martha was practically swooning. "I could get used to that. Are you doing anything tonight?"

"As much as I wish I wasn't, I have to work. It's only a few hour shift, but I'll be back late," Melitta explained. "And you need to get sleep."

"I'd rather be with you."

"I know that and I love hearing you say that," she said, even though they were signing. "but you didn't sleep much this weekend and you could use it."

"But I don't have any bags under my eyes!" Martha joked, knowing that was only because the girls had used the power of color correcting and concealer to make it so. "I'll miss you."

"And I'll miss you too. I promise, I'm not thinking about anything else for the rest of the day," Melitta said, opening the door and preparing to leave without so much as a wardrobe check. Her lipstick was hardly smudged, just fading, but her curly hair fell out of the bun and over her shoulders in an uncontrollable wave. "Business Management class? I don't know her. I only know Martha."

Smitten as she watched her girlfriend leave, Martha ran the word through her mind.  _ Girlfriend. Girlfriend. Girlfriend, girlfriend, girl-friend.  _ Less bold than her other, Martha checked her reflection and fixed her frizzy hair, putting it back into a braid out of habit. When she saw herself in the foggy mirror, she saw Bessel and nothing else.

With a swallow, she undid the braids and finger-brushed them. They didn't look good, but they looked so very free.

_ Dickinson _ , she thought to herself with a small smile.  _ That's more like it. _

It was practically torture knowing that Melitta wouldn't be home for hours, and she didn't anticipate the rain. She caught a ride home with Georg, who kindly turned up the bass in his car so she could enjoy his niche music taste. His parents were very close with hers, and they almost had a brother-sister sort of relationship, but with much less talking. He did give her rides on occasion, and with the rain, she begged for one. Not to mention that she couldn't ride the proper bus to her new home. "Don't tell my parents you're driving me," she told him. "I'll tell you the details when you're not focusing on the road, but my life is quite literally at risk."

"You got it," he swore.

She walked from his house to the hayloft in the rain, not wanting to show him yet the exact location she was staying. It was a solid hour after school ended that she arrived to her home, between flagging down Georg and her walk.

By the time she reached the hayloft, she realized that she had already been beaten there.

Wendla Bergmann sat on her bed, smoothing out the design and tracing it absentmindedly. Melchior watched her, transfixed. "Anna told me that she was staying here; her and Thea made some blankets for her. That's what I'm talking about, Melchi- the little acts of kindness. We do it out of love, not selfish desire." Under the protection of the edge of the roof, Martha watched them through the window, silently.

"Love?" Melchior signed, shaking. Martha noticed the edge of his belt hanging to the side, as if he threw it back on in a rush. "Is there such a thing?"

"Of course there is," Wendla replied. "Are we not a product of love? Don't we always feel it? Maybe not in the way of husbands and wives, but I love my friends. Don't you love Moritz?"

"I suppose, yes," Melchior nodded. "He's my best friend. I don't know what I would do without him."

"Melchior," Wendla hesitated, eyes meeting his. "do you love me?"

"I love you just as much as you love me."

It was a second, just a moment of Martha seeing Wendla's wide doe eyes, open to try to see what everyone was always trying to say to her. With a harsh kiss, prying her lips open, they turned to a fearful, watery mess. Her small hands struggled against his, but calmed when he applied enough pressure. He broke away, inches away, waiting for her response.

"Wait, no-"

It was harder for her to sign while he kept reaching, grabbing, holding her hands. Pinning her onto the bed, he kissed her again, pulling her body underneath his. She fit, smaller than most, like a puzzle piece that never wanted to be in the box in the first place. Martha swallowed, understanding what she was witnessing. Wendla protested, not understanding what she was experiencing. And Melchior? He continued, adoring what he was feeling.

"Don't, Melchi-"

And he did.

Martha turned away, short breaths escaping her lungs. Alone, she wouldn't be able to save Wendla. She wasn't strong enough; Melchior was tough. She could run to the Rilows and get help, yes, Hanschen and Thea could help her. But by the time she brought them back, she knew that Melchior would be gone, finished, and fleeing into the rain. 

She made a choice.

There are times in our lives when we make choices that aren't very good. Sometimes we don't know that they were wrong until after the fact, when we see the consequences. Often, we know exactly what we are doing wrong and we don't enjoy it, but we accept it and turn away, hoping to forget. Rarely do we bask in our immorality, standing on cliff tops and loving our damnation. The worst case is when we never find out that what we did was wrong and there is no way to fix it. The unfortunate truth is that we will all experience all of these at some points in our lives. Even the most innocent, even the ones that we believe can do no wrong, even the delicate, they can and will do this too.

Even a child can ask a boy to beat her.

This is a moment when Martha does something wrong out of fear that she cannot control. Perhaps there's a figure of her father, his reflection smiling in the reflection of Melchior's belt buckle. She cannot help but wonder if a part of her wants this to happen, so Wendla understands. Of course, this is not the case, but darkness finds itself in our thoughts when we don't want to see it.

Martha leaves.

Feet slamming against wet grass, sloshing as the rain pours against her face, her foundation and concealer run down her arms. She is dripping brown, as if her skin itself is falling across the earth, blending in with its rich tones. She feels like the Wicked Witch, melting. She is running, she doesn't know where she's going, but her feet carry her. Past the houses of her childhood friends, past Moritz house, past the Rilows.

An angel appears before her, or perhaps it's a child.

"Martha Bessel?" she signs, resting a hand on Martha's soaked arm.

Martha sniffles. "Ilse? You frightened me. I- there was- he's-"

"Calm down, what are you saying?"

"I don't know."

"Then what's the use of speaking?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could talk about my decision to have Martha turn away, but that's going to be an underlying internal conflict for a large portion of the rest of this fic (although I don't have a planned end yet- we could have thousands of words to go!!!). Instead, I'm going to talk a little about the hayloft scene.  
> For those of you who skipped the hayloft scene, Martha arrived at the hayloft after Wendla and Melchior got there, but before anything started. She watches from the window, understanding that Wendla is being raped. She doesn't think she's strong enough or that anyone would get there in time, so she leaves. She runs into Ilse and that's when it ends.  
> My portrayal of the hayloft scene in this fic is very different from basically every other time I talk about it; this one is based more heavily on the play's version, which is very short without a shred of consent. Melchior says, "Oh, believe me, there's no such thing as love! Everything is selfishness, everything is egotism!——I love you as little as you love me." and I really tried to capture that here.  
> My view of the scene, in the musical, is a lot more about power and control but I didn't want to focus on that here. I can see myself writing a separate fic about that, but this one is not about Wendla Bergaman or Melchior Gabor; it's about Martha Bessel (and Melitta Rilow).  
> The next chapter is going to focus heavily on "Don't Do Sadness/Blue Wind" and more on suicide and less on rape, to be blunt.  
> If you'd like to read something more lighthearted of mine, I did just start a Bare a Pop Opera fic that you can find on my page, called "Behind the Coffee Bar". As always, my Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr are @honeybeebecki and I would die for your comments.


	9. i sleep great knowing we will never be the same

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martha watches her whole life crumble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going off the last chapter, you can take context cues and figure out what is coming.  
> In this chapter, the girls will find Moritz' body. It's not horribly gory, but you're a better judge of what you can handle than I. He used a gun. There's lots of blood.  
> Also mentions of rape, a lot. It's definitely one of the harder chapters to read because it was the hardest one to write so far.

"Back, back in the hayloft-" Martha shivered, ice running down her back. Ilse's face faded in and out of focus, seeming to melt against the autumn rain. Perhaps this was all another awful dream, but the diamonds falling into her skin in droplets that cracked and splatter felt so real, so wet, so awful and cold, that she couldn't suspend her belief that this was reality for long enough to pity herself.

Ilse balanced on the balls of her feet, veins turning bright red in her eyes, not unlike the blood pouring down Gabor's face in Martha's nightmare. "Moritz? Did he go hide in there, searching for my tomahawk?"

"No, it wasn't- why would you say Moritz? Did you see him?" Martha asked, blinking rapidly. "Is everything alright with him?"

"He said he feigned sickness this morning!" she exclaimed, spinning in the rain. "What a wonderful game to play- hooky. Although something about the boy is quite sick!"

"Ilse, what are you saying?" She tried to keep conscious, tried to focus, but her stomach felt sick and she wondered if she had eaten. The adrenaline was the only thing keeping her limbs from going numb and soul from going faint.

"Maybe he's drunk!" she suggested, pulling a small bottle of whiskey out of her pocket and tacking a gulp. She stumbled, hands clumsily landing on Martha as she dropped the bottle in her friend's pocket. "For later. When you're cold, okay?"

"Moritz doesn't drink-"

In an instant, Ilse's face turned pale, a snowy white the faded. She reached to touch her buzzed head, eyes milky and glazed. "Oh, no, oh, no!" she cried, fingers forgetting to sign. Martha was easily able to read her lips and her distress.

Trying her best to snap Ilse back into reality, Martha cried out, any noise her mouth could form. "What?" she tried to ask aloud, mouth failing her.

"You sound like Moritz." she signed, almost laughing and almost crying. "In the distant, just a moment ago, you could see the horizon. Now, all I hear is the gunshot echoing."

"Gunshot?"

"Didn't you hear?" Ilse pointed to the east, unfocused and dazed. She wore only a thin nightgown, straps keeping her cold in the thick air. It was shocking that did she didn't fall into the puddles and freeze, right then and there. "I want the gun. We must find him."

"You don't think- Moritz couldn't have-"

"He told me he had homework! The stupid, stupid boy!"

In a flash, both girls began to sprint to where Ilse heard the shot, running through the rain as though it did not exist. Thunder cracked over the sky above, a grim reminder that this was one of the worst nights of many lives. Sure enough, in the grass at the park that Martha confessed her father's sins at, laid his body.

Moritz held a small silver pistol in one hand and nothing in the other. Not so much as a note. A noose hung from the tree branching above him, but he did not use it. At the sight of his wide eyes and what was left of his head, the deformed mess spilling into the grass, Martha promptly turned and vomited into the grass for a moment, tears mixing with her sick. She had nobody to call, no way to reach anyone. She sat, crying for what felt like hours.

_ Let the rain swallow me too, _ she prayed to any god who would listen to a child's prayer.  _ Just flood me, drown me.  _

Nobody came to rescue her. Nobody would save her. Nobody knew.

She wondered if Melchior heard the shots.

After God knows how long, she rose to her feet. Ilse was gone, nowhere to be seen. She left no traces behind, but Martha first noticed that the gun was missing from Moritz' hand. It was cruel, sick almost that Ilse wanted a souvenir. Martha wished she could have had it instead.

She didn't know what to do. Shall she carry his body to the hayloft? To his father? Spit on him and tell him what he had done? Lay with it until the morning came so the sun may dry up the evening dew? It was passed midnight, the dark enveloping the park. 

Although the most obvious and tempting choice bubbled in her soul, and tried to tell herself that she couldn't. She wouldn't. There was no reason for her to just leave him, wait for an animal to find him, or  even is father. But there was no reason to stay either.

She was afraid that leaving when she should stay would turn into a habit.

Her feet moved slowly, feeling like blocks of cement as she retreated back to the hayloft, no more tears left to roll down her cheeks. She was wet, shivering, and wanted nothing more than to fade into an abyss. Moritz was dead. He killed himself. Moritz was dead, he was dead, he was dead. The words repeated themselves in her mind but they never felt real, no matter how often she thought it, no matter how much the image of his broken head stuck to her mind, blood spattering on the grass. She supposed it was on the bottom of her shoes as well.

Back at the hayloft, a frozen figure lay on her bed, crying.

Martha rushed to her friend's side, flipped her skirt back down, and helped her sit up. "Wendla, I'm so sorry."

She let out a gasp, trying to suck in the stuffy air as she exhaled and choking on her own spit. "I… I don't understand. I kissed him and then- and then it all happened so fast. I don't understand, I-"

"The thing that your mother won't tell you about," Martha signed, wishing to God that she had told Wendla sooner. She shouldn't have withheld anything from her. Although, Martha doubted it would have made a difference. If Melchior wanted to rape her, Wendla's knowledge of the act couldn't have saved her from force. "That's what just happened. It's a terrible, awful thing most of the time."

Unfortunately, for Martha, that was true. Out of all six friends (herself included) that she knew to be sexually active, only two were truly by choice. Hanschen and Ernst were truly the lucky ones, the exception. "I'm going to have a child?"

"You might, I don't know." Martha cried, so much having happened. "Did he- did he put anything on before he- he, uh, penetrated?" She hated the signs for this, and felt as if they were so vulgar. "Like something over his dick?"

"No, nothing."

"That's not ideal," she confessed. "There's a chance you could have a child, yes. And that's very scary, but I want you to know that I'm here for you."

"Have you ever- ever done such a thing?"

Martha swallowed. "Yes."

"With who?"

"You don't want to know."  
"Yes, I do. I always know what I want to know and nobody believes me. For once in my life, could you please grant me some shred of understanding?"

"My father."

"What?"

"Almost every night." Martha felt herself begin to cry again, even though she hadn't any water left in her body, it seemed. "My mom let it happen. Pretended that it didn't. I live here now."

"This is your bed, of course!" Wendla jumped to her feet, feeling more impure over being on Martha's bed without permission than anything that had happened to her. "I should have known, I'm so sorry. I thought Melchior might be in here, and I wanted to talk to him, to apologize for all that had happened."

"Are you still sorry?"

Wendla paused. "Yes, I am. I believe that if I hadn't asked him to hit me, he would have never taken it this far. What if I really am pregnant?"

"Then you have a choice to make, Wendla, and I don't want to think that far ahead."

Head.

Or lack thereof.

It wasn't even the same word, but rang the same in Martha's mind. She began to cry again. Did she even stop?

"Martha- Martha, what's wrong? Did Melchior find you too?"

"No, but- Moritz," she signed. "Ilse and I- we just found him. He's- he's gone. Dead."

"He can't-"

"He is, Wendla, I saw it with my own eyes," she confessed, the entire weight of the world fallling onto her shoulders. "Ilse took- she took the gun. And I, you see, I didn't mean to, but I didn't know what else to do and I just left."

At that moment, the hayloft door cracked open. Melitta entered, a little dazed. "It's coming down hard out there, isn't it?" she signed, but upon noticing Wendla and the amount of red puffing around their eyes, she sat down with them. "Is everything alright?"

"No, not in the slightest. Do you still want to know?"

"I-I don't know. Just spit it out."

Martha paused, deciding not to tell Wendla's story. Only Moritz's, as he could not tell it himself any longer. "Moritz killed himself."

Melitta's jaw dropped, unable to process. "But- no. I don't understand."

"You and me both," Wendla snorted as she considered her own situation, making a very dark joke at an extremely dark moment.

The three girls held each other. What else could they do?

Eventually, carrying Martha's spear bedsheet from the night she moved in, they retreated back to the park. It was the early hours of the morning, and the raining had stopped. Their feet sloshed in the mud, a light fog misting over the ground. Nobody was yet awake, and certainly not Moritz.

Martha volunteered to lift his head, as the others were afraid it might just pop off. She firstly closed his eyes. He would no longer see them sign over him, no longer see what they truly felt for him, as if he ever could in the first place. He looked peacefully asleep, almost.

Wendla took his legs, although she noticed that one of his shoes were missing. Martha brushed it off and blamed Ilse; she must have come back for another souvenir.

Melitta, ever the strongest, took his torso, lifting the center of his body and guiding it onto the sheet, where they each took a corner, forming it into an awkward triangle. They covered his face, wrapping him tightly as they could.

It was a morbid walk through the neighborhood to say the least.

Maybe neighbors called the cops or maybe they realized that it was too late. Maybe they were sound asleep, not unlike Moritz. They did not go to the Stiefel house; no, Mr. Stiefel did not deserve to see his son. Wendla said that Melchior had told her that his father treated him horribly. "Not to the extent of Martha's," she assured them, "but he would rather have Melchior know first."

It was when they reached the Gabors that Wendla bid her friends farewell. Martha, aside from Melitta, made her promise not to hurt herself.

"Melchior has hurt me enough for a lifetime, I assure you. There's no need."

He was the one who unfortunately opened the door, messy hair fluffed over his dark eyes, clearly just woken up by the doorbell. Fanny wouldn't have heard the doorbell and Mr. Gabor? Who knew where he was?

Martha resisted the urge to punch him in the face. She imagined him bleeding, brusing, and keeling over in pain. The thought was more tempting than she cared to admit; she was not the kind of person who derives pleasure from other's pain. She was not Melchior Gabor.

"What the hell do y-" he looked at the wrapped body, a white sheet with spots of blood seeping through the cotton. "What- who is that?"

"Moritz." Melitta said aloud. "We found him last night."

"Is he- is he alive?"

"No."

Melchior turned as white as the sheet itself, and Martha could have sworn he was about to cry. She did not know that he was capable of such an act. It was hard to imagine that someone that did something so awful could be so human. It was disgusting. She felt sick, bile rising in her throat.

Melchior was just as human as Martha was.

It wasn't hard for him to connect the dots; his friend who failed and hardly slept turned up dead. It was very obvious the cause of death. Melchior knew better than to break in front of these girls, maybe his friends. He wanted to close the door, turn, run, and hide, but something had to be done about the body. An adult was needed.

"One moment, please," he choked, returning inside and leaving the door open. He returned with Fanny, having informed her in ASL of the plight his best friend had experienced. It was more than a plight, but English or German words cannot fully describe the storms brewing in the hearts of these children. They were only children.

Only children were carrying a dead child. Fifteen years old.

Fanny broke down in tears when she saw his face, even with closed eyes. She had been warned, she had known that this was on its way. She was in the eye of the storm and saw the tornado rushing, but did nothing. She begged him not to. But children simply don't listen.

"Call his father," she signed to Melchior, who returned to the kitchen, gladly hiding his face from the girls as they carried Moritz inside. Martha was almost thankful that she couldn't hear the conversation in the other room. Melitta, on the other hand, would never forget it.

"Mr. Stiefel? This is Melchior Gabor… Yes, Moritz is with me- He only arrived here a few minutes ago and- please, sir, let me explain." He was silent for a moment, and Melitta could faintly hear a fury of sound from the phone. "Sir, I really wouldn't say those kinds of things if I were you." Melchior spoke quietly, self assured as his muscles tensed. Although he was facing away from Melitta, he couldn't hide the tears rolling down his cheeks from himself. "I don't mean to insult you, Mr. Stiefel, but you must understand-" He did not say anything for a long moment, letting the anger and obvious hate burst through the phone. "Your son is dead, you ignorant sack of shit!" He hissed, Melitta jumping up to her feet and running into the kitchen. Fanny and Martha exchanged glances as they banadaged Moritz' head.

At the very least, to make him look okay at the funeral. Even though it would most definitely be closed casket.

There was silence on the other side of the phone. Melchior choked out a sob. "He killed himself."  
With that, he hung up the phone.

Not having any reason against comforting him, Melitta pulled Melchior into a hug, allowing him the peace of her silence. There was an unspoken agreement that she would not speak of his mourning. He cried into her shoulder for a long while, and when Martha looked up and saw it, she almost threw up in her mouth.

She couldn't be upset at Melitta for hugging a monster that she had no way to know was a monster. It wasn't her fault in the slightest. Despite this, a sense of anger arose in her. Martha was often angry in ways that she could not yet describe, but now, she wanted to throw things. She wanted to watch glass shatter against a wall, breaking into a million tiny pieces. It was a strange feeling and she didn't like it in the slightest. The anger overwhelmed her; it was aimed at so many people, so many awful men, fathers and rapists alike.

And yet, Melitta, the calm of the storm, stood in front of her and some part of her rage wanted to blame her, even though she had done nothing purposefully wrong.

"I have to go," Martha signed to Fanny, who caught her wrist as she stood up.

Her eyes were kind and open, something Martha wasn't used to seeing in a parent. "Are you sure?"

"Positive," Martha said, fleeing out the door without saying so much of a goodbye to Melitta. This wouldn't be goodbye, Martha was sure, just a 'see you later' anyway. She wasn't going to die or run away. She wasn't even planning on seeing Ilse, but she also wondered if she ever would see Ilse again.

Her feet carried her out of the Gabor house, turning out of the neighborhood. Not the hayloft, no, the very idea of that place where a horrid act took place sickened her, although it was still a home. Just not right at that moment. Martha wasn't religious, but the local church was only a few blocks away; that way there was no excuse for the neighborhood residents not to attend. Melchior found his excuses just a few weeks ago, as he didn't show up anymore. Wendla complained for a while, but it quickly stopped.

The church was unlocked, empty pews for people to pray in when they needed to. When they were angry. When they were hurting. A woman was there, Martha saw in the front row, with the hood of her black jacket flipped up to cover her face. Martha kneeled in the same row, opposite the aisle, and did not recognize the woman until she caught a glimpse of her calloused black hands.

She moved over until she was next to the woman, almost afraid of frightening her. She was deep in prayer, mumbling incoherently under her breath. Martha could not yet see her eyes, and assumed they were closed. She would patiently wait until they were open to sign, not wanting to pull her out of what could be an epiphany of sorts.

It was about five minutes when she was finished, almost crying, and Martha almost felt impolite for intruding. When her mom had said "Amen," she opened her eyes and turned to her daughter next to her, letting out a shriek of joy as she pulled her into a hug. It was rapid and fast, barely giving Martha a moment to see her mother's face.

She would usually be opposed to the touch of a family member, as they all began to feel the same after a while, but it felt like ages and sometimes you just need a hug from your mother. As they pulled away from each other, Martha gasped.

"Mama, what happened?" She signed, letting her fingers trace over the heavy, darken bruise along her mother's eye. Her lip was swollen as well, a small cut clotting slowly. 

"My darling, you know what happened," she signed with a sad smile, jerking her head away. There was almost an anger in her eye.

He lost his punching bag, so he chose another. Martha realized that her act of leaving did this. She put her mother in danger. It was her. All her.

"I'm just happy to see you," Mama said. "I've been worried sick. Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm safe." she said, not exposing any information as to where she was staying. It wasn't that she didn't trust her mom, it was that she didn't trust her dad. "I promise. But you're not."

"And that's on you!" She said to Martha's surprise. Why, for a second, did she think that her mother loved her? The same mother who made her sleep in the cold, outside, on more than one occasion. How could such a witch have compassion on the child that she deliberately broke? "If you hadn't left, this show wouldn't be happening! You know what I was just praying for? For you to come home. So that it would stop. I'm happy to see you so I can drag your ass home."

"Mama, you can't," Martha stood up and backed away, giving herself a few feet of a head start if she had to dash. "Don't you want me to be safe?"

"You're safer in a house with your family than out on the streets? You're no better off than that Ilse girl!"

"Ilse is free!" She signed furiously, fingers working faster than her mind could. "You know nothing of freedom! I am not an animal to be kept in a cage. I am not a toy, I am not a plaything, and I am certainly not a Bessel."

"You take that back, little girl!" Her mom reached to grab her wild, uncontrollable hair, but her fingers slipped. The lunge was all Martha needed to know that it was time to run.

"I never want to see you again!" she said finally before turning back to the wind and running as fast as her feet could take her. She hadn't even noticed that she started crying under a tear splashed onto her knee. It wasn't safe to go immediately back to the hayloft; what if her mother was still following her? And she couldn't go back to the Gabors', no, she would cry at the sight of Melchior's face and die at the sight of Moritz's. Churches were dangerous for her, for that was where the devils resided. Priapia was too far away.

She truly had nowhere to go.

After everything that had happened, she could hardly remember what day it was. Ilse's bottle of whiskey hung in her pocket as if it was made of cement. When it was given to her, Moritz was still alive.

She took a long sip.

She felt warm, almost, like Ilse said she would. It wasn't a fun kind of warm, like a cozy blanket in front of a fireplace, but more like every part of her was on fire. Her world, it seemed, was burning. Maybe she was already in hell. Maybe there wasn't some symbolic metaphor for what she was going through. Maybe it was just shit.

She let her lips suck another swig out of the bottle before she tighten the lid and let it hang back in her pocket. 

The snow bank that she fell into was a refreshing moment of ice as she walked through hell. She made a snow angel, looking up at the sun until it hurt her eyes. She couldn't tell if she was smiling or frowning, which made her laugh.

She was an angel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise she's not dead! I wanted to do the "get drunk in the snow" thing though, and I also needed a way to kickstart a little further into action. No big things are gonna happen for a bit; the story is hitting the falling action. Maybe I'll be done with it in a few months.  
> As always, I would die for comments.


	10. into the arms of the girl that i love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martha wakes up, safe, but quickly understanding that Moritz will never be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUNERAL CHAPTER FUNERAL CHAPTER  
> also i was going to have Herr Bessel show up at the funeral and yell at Martha but i decided against it. i really wanted to focus on moritz and what martha's going through with the loss of a friend and not make it about her dad for five minutes. that said, he does make an appearance in this chapter.  
> normal trigger warnings apply. this one's sad but not very triggering, i don't think.

Martha Bessel laid on the bed, the mattress all too familiar to the way that her back curved, made for the boy who lived on it, but fitting for her. Uncomfortable continued to be her normal, a word that hung in the front of her mind with such a startling presence that she could no longer deny its power. Skin soft and dry from crying for God knows how long, she pressed her fingers against her cheek to make sure she was still alive. The last thing she remembered was the cold, but the image of a bullet firing through Moritz's head replayed over and over again, guilt setting in with every breath.

At the sight of her friend stirring, Thea rose to the side of her bed. "We were really worried about you. Do you remember any of what happen?"

"No, I- I got drunk in the snow," she answered, the only thing she recalled being the stinging frost biting against her skin as she fell back into the abyss. "That's all."

"I think you woke up at some point, but you blacked out. I think for the best, honestly. Melitta and I pieced together what we think happened," Thea explained, eyes darting around the room. "We found you in the backyard, not even the hayloft, with a gash in your ankle and you were holding a rosebush. Melitta said that it was the kind that you had in your front yard; champagne roses or something?"

"Yeah, my dad made me plant them. Beautiful flowers to match a beautiful girl," she recited, shivers coursing through her veins. "I went back?"

"You stole my bike. There's blood down the side and it was next to you in the snow."  
"Is it alright?"

"It's fine, but I don't give two shits about my bike. Are you alright? Melitta patched you up the best she could, cleaned your wound with hydrogen peroxide to make sure it didn't get infected. I would be careful walking for a few days."

"Where's Melitta now?"

"Trying to find Hanschen. He came home this morning from God knows where and when we told him the news, he darted off."

"I know where he is. He's at Ernst's house."

"Ernst Robel?"

"Yes, exactly. Ernst and Moritz were best friends. It's going to hit him the hardest."

"What about Melchior?"  
"What about him?"

Thea raised an eyebrow. "I thought Moritz and Melchior were best friends."

"I don't know, maybe."

The conversation was short, lilted, as both girls knew that there were pressing matters and holes in their unfillable hearts. A life had been cut short. There's no way to not think about it, the bullet cutting through Moritz' skull, Ilse's fallen face when she heard the shot, and Wendla's collapsed form on the hayloft bed. "The funeral is tonight."

Martha sat up in her bed. "That's so soon, how do they expect to plan it by then? He died last night!"

"They don't. His parents don't care at all. He'll be lucky if he gets a casket. I'm sure that Herr Stiefel would rather light him on fire. Use him as fuel. Make him useful in death, at least." Thea rambled on. "Ilse told me why he did it. He was at the bottom of the class."

"There's no way; Ernst has been failing all of his classes. There's no way that Moritz wasn't higher."

"She suspects- she thinks that they failed Moritz instead because he was holding back Melchior."

"Fuck. Fuck, Melchior did this too, didn't he?"

"No, you can't blame him for this. He was simply a friend. That's not a crime, being a friend with someone. Ever."

Martha hesitated, words threatening to drip like rotten honey from her lips. "It can be. Love can be wrong, it can be a crime. If it's executed wrong."

"Then it's not love! Martha, what's going into you?"

"I have to find Melitta."

She climbed out of the bed, silently thanked Thea for her hospitality, and rushed out of the house without saying a goodbye to Herr and Frau Rilow. She didn't have time. Ernst was down the street; there was no way that Hanschen hadn't already reached him. Taking the blood-rusted bike, Martha pedaled down the street, fuzzy memories of the night before fighting each other for a place in the spotlight of her mind. She had walked home, stumbling in the snow, a distant shadow of Moritz following behind. She could still smell his hair, his breath, feel his curls against her fingertips when she'd run her fingers through his locks. 

It must have been twenty, thirty, forty minutes before she arrived at the Rilow house. How she was sober enough to bike, or to even break into their garage, she had no clue. There was a single vision of a wilted rose that danced across her eyes and led her to the rosebush.

She would be locked outside in the hot sun, summers in a row, and forbidden to return inside until they were perfectly pruned, until every weed was snipped away, until the roses were as beautiful as her father told her she was. They grew strong, proud, watered by her tears. Once, when the shears had split her hand, she pressed a bloody handprint against the window and begged for release and care.

Frau Bessel had closed the curtains.

As she biked, she felt the scar across her hand rub against the handles. It wasn't unlike the one forming on her heavily bandaged ankle, which shot pain there her bones with every pedal. She continued retracing her steps, recalling how she escaped from the house the night before. She must have dug the bush out with only her hands, as she noticed the dirt buried under her nails, ripped it from the earth, and stuffed it inside the bike's dirt-lined basket. Somehow she got home to the Rilows- images of her father chasing her with  a vase in his hand flickered through her mind, yes, he had spotted it out of the window.

He had pulled her back by a braid, yanking her ankle against the pavement, slicing it open. She had gotten home, somehow. And now she needed to bring Melitta and Hanschen home. They had a funeral to prepare.

She tossed the bike against the grass outside the Robels' front door, much more careless than she had been before. She knocked fervently, only to be answered by Ernst himself.

His eyes were puffy and small, but the bags under them appeared light. "Martha. Have you heard?" he signed painfully, hoping that she had so he wouldn't have to explain.

"Yeah, me and Ilse- we found the body." She swallowed. Looking him straight on was harder than she thought. "Is Hanschen here?"

Ernst didn't sign for a moment, unsure what he should and should not admit to. With a gentle hand on his shoulder, Hanschen appeared in the doorway. He didn't look like he'd been crying. No doubt that he would silently mourn until he was alone in a beautiful place, and then he would break. "She knows already, darling. Besides, she's in the family now."

"Oh, okay. Come in."

"Hanschen, you need to call Melitta. She's losing her mind somewhere, not knowing where you are. God knows where she is now." Martha signed. 

He closed the door behind her as they entered the empty foyer; of course, it was a Sunday. Ernst's parents would be at church. He must have feigned sickness, not unlike Moritz. Church would be awful anyway that day, seeing the Stiefels alone, explaining why their son couldn't make mass. Quiet whispers around the church as rumors spread faster than a forest fire. "Don't you have a phone?"

"I can't exactly carry a tracking device that my dad pays for. Not anymore." Martha's nose wrinkled as she considered everything she gave up. Thousands of photos in a cloud she'd never see again, comparable to the dust of photographs in some field outside of Priapia. "Just call her, please."

"Where's your phone?" Hanschen asked, and Ernst pointed to an old white landline on the kitchen counter. The brunette led Martha into the living room, a disgusting shade of light pink with furniture from the seventies. It wasn't exactly what she expected; while Ernst was a generally timid person, he laughed freely and smoked often. Wendla joked that his only personally trait lived in a pair of socks he wore with marijuana leaves on the ankles. 

Martha compressed her body into the smallest form possible, as if touching the sides of the ancient yellow recliner would instantly kill her. It was a natural position for any animal in a foreign environment, especially with a boy that she hadn't really spoken to in years. They were close back when they were kids, often playing 'House' across from each other. 

"The funeral's tonight." She made polite conversation, fingers shaking as she held back tears. Both of them could break at any moment. "That's why we need Melitta. We need to plan it. God knows that Herr Stiefel isn't going to do shit."

"It should have been me."

"What?"

"I'm the bottom of the class, Martha. We all know it," he signed, tears welling over soft cheeks. "I should have failed, been left behind in the grade. It shouldn't have been him. If the upper class can only take sixty, he should have made it. He's only been failing the last few weeks; I've been failing all semester. If I was just a little dumber, it would have been me."

"Then you'd be dead."

"No. My parents would be fine if I was a sailor or mechanic. They'd be fine if I failed out of school. I could still be in the clergy, even. Moritz never had a shot. His parents expect the highest. This wouldn't be a problem if I was the lowest."

Martha moved from the lonely recliner and sat beside him on the couch, wrapping her hands around his shoulders as he cried. She imagined that Hanschen had already held him similarly for hours, but it was never going to stop. He was never going to stop needing human connection and he was never going to be able to forgive himself. He was never going to stop loving Moritz.

None of them were.

Hanschen returned, a stressed hand running through his blonde curls. "Melitta's on her way. She said the funeral's tonight."

"We're planning it. We don't have much time. It'll be at the church," Ernst predicted. "One last bit of Christianity for Moritz, as if that ever saved him."

Martha and Hanschen looked at him with wide eyes; it wasn't like him to say anything against his faith. He was a firm believer in Christ. Martha silently prayed that losing Moritz wouldn't change that. It couldn't. 

"Can we even get a casket?"  
Somehow the answer turned out to be yes, as Melitta held Martha's hand in front of it, just hours later. It was closed, of course; it had to be. The body was too managled for the general population to stomach.

Melchior performed the eulogy, in sim-com, speaking as he signed. "Moritz was my best friend," he started, reading from the black journal he always carried with him. "I'd never met anyone as spirited. It should never be regarded as his fault for the break of said spirit; he did what he could to keep it alive. He wouldn't want us to mourn him. He would want us to love the fleeting moments of our childhood that he treasured.

"We discussed death often, as all great thinkers do. It's life's greatest mystery and all too common. There's a risk of it every day. In case it ever arrived, especially when unexpected, we discussed what to do. He told me what to do with his belongings; donate all to charity, except give childhood toys to those he loved. And he loved so many, so freely. I'm above honored to be one of them. He's left us behind too soon. He knows we love him. I truly believe that."

A scattering of applause thanked him for his words as Georg Zirschnitz played soft music on the piano. Martha always made sure to complement Georg's playing, and he was often so distracted that he never thought through the logic of the Deaf girl's words. 

Melitta broke her sweaty hand away from Martha's, letting their bodies stand so close to each other to keep the connection strong, even while she had to sign. "Do you want to say anything to Moritz? I'll go up with you if you do."

Martha nodded, eyes red and blurry. She never wanted Melitta to see her so… ugly. She was raw human emotion, and she should not be thinking about how beautiful she was or was not at a funeral. Certainly Melitta didn't pay attention to Martha's stretched out skin, but only to her soft doe eyes. The pair walked to the edge of the coffin, too clearly imaging what the inside looked like. Martha wondered what he was wearing and if he was buried with anything. Was it a morbid thought? She didn't know.

"Moritz," she signed, sniffing, "I love you. I didn't say it enough when you were alive. You were so, so beautiful. I don't know what I'm supposed to say. Nothing can bring you back. Nothing will give us another summer day together, another lazy Latin class where you doze off and I take notes for you. Nothing will let me hug you again. I don't know what you want to hear. I don't know what- I don't know what to tell you."

She fell into Melitta's arms, her head against her lover's chest as she heaved sobs against it. Melitta escorted her away from the casket, which was soon lifted out of the church by a few of the boys. With careful fingers, Melitta ran her hands through Martha's hair, letting the braids out, and letting her know that she was loved. It was important to cry. To mourn. Even if it wasn't want Moritz wanted.

"Moritz Stiefel," she whispered into Martha's ear, simply talking to herself. "All of the things that you left behind are going to mourn you whether you want them to or not. Your presence isn't going to leave us, not yet. You're like a ghost. I hope you like roses, because this girl risked her livelihood to get them for you."

Livelihood.

Melitta looked down at the girl in her arms and smiled, just a little, as she realized that Martha was alive. She had made it through everything that life had thrown at her. She was so much stronger than she would believe, and so loved. 

Livelihood.

Martha was in the arms of someone who would do anything for her, the coolest girl in the world, and whatever else Martha needed to see in her. Melitta was honored to be that girl, to be loved by someone so bright and shining.

Livelihood.

Something Moritz could have had if he just held out a little longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be coming surprisingly soon- I'm submitting this story to be in my Creative Writing class book, as we publish a book every semester. Unfortunately, that means I want it to be done. The deadline is Friday. I plan on writing a total of twelve chapters, plus an epilogue, so we're wrapping this up. Next chapter is "Totally Fucked", so it's going to be a lot more fun with a heavier focus on Marlitta and less on canon.


	11. did it frighten you how we kissed when we danced on the light up floor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To parallel the chaos of 'Totally Fucked', Martha and Melitta go to a rave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I don't think there are any triggers in this one? Like there's mentions of all of Martha's past traumas, but this is a relatively happy chapter. I think they deserve it.

"Expelled?" Wendla gasped when they were back at school the next day, as it couldn't have even been cancelled or delayed for the loss of a life. Not even a moment to spare, to mourn, to meet in the gym and discuss what to do if you're feeling depressed. "But I didn't tell anyone what he did, not outside of you two!"  
"I know, it's not because of that," Melitta explained. "They say that he killed Moritz. Not directly, of course, but that some essay he had given Moritz pushed him- pushed him to the edge." She left it vague, as to not inspire either girl to burst out into tears.  
"It was an essay on sex," Martha avoided Wendla's eyes for the sake of the rage of irony she probably felt. "The Art of Sleeping With. It was so obscene, so graphic, that he couldn't- you know. Live. Anna told us first period, but you have to admit, it does sound like something that Melchior would do."  
"He was probably only trying to help Moritz!" Wendla cried. "Can you imagine what good it would have done if he had given me a copy? I might not be in this mess!"  
"What mess?"  
Wendla swallowed, peering around the art room and making sure that no eyes were focused on her. "I'm pregnant."  
The word hit Martha like a ton of bricks, weighing down her stomach. It couldn't be any more than the concrete crown Wendla wore with disappointed pride. She wasn't going to ask the first question that popped into her head; she knew better than that.  
Melitta didn't.  
"Are you keeping it?" she asked without a second thought, eyes glancing to Wendla's midsection for a fleeting moment.   
"Do I have a choice?" Wendla asked, tears forming in her wide eyes, those of a child who would never have chosen any of this if she was given half of a choice. "I'm either an disgrace or a sinner."  
Martha pondered on this for a moment, imaging herself in Wendla's shoes as Wendla so often did for her. Either be banished from the church and go to hell for the murder of an unborn child, as they were all taught was a cardinal sin, or raise a bastard who had no place in the world and wasn't even wanted. Adoption was an option, sure, but the whole town would see that she was pregnant if she went through with the child regardless. The church would likely exile her for that as well, as marital sex was the only way to go in the eyes of the clergy. Ironically, Christianity was hardly forgiving, despite the foundations that the religion was founded on.  
"My mom says sinner. She's making me. We have an appointment in a few weeks, but it's a very underground sort of thing. It doesn't sound safe. Really painful, actually," Wendla rambled, speaking about this for the first time.   
There's a moment you know you're fucked.  
"We should go out tonight," Melitta said, forgetting for a moment that her friends were somewhat younger than she. "Like, I bet I could find a rave or something. There's an underground party scene near Priapia; Ilse talks about it all the time. Just get wasted or something."  
"What about the baby?"  
"If you're getting rid of it anyway, what does it matter?"  
Martha considered getting lost in an array of dazzling lights, music thumping in her soul that she could feel when she couldn't hear. It was tempting, to make a thousand friends in one night of nameless bodies. She wasn't usually one for loud parties, but she wasn't usually one in a relationship or mourning a friend or a lot of this as of late. "I'll sit this one out, actually," Wendla decided. "But you guys have fun. Really. You deserve a night of fun. After everything that's happened."  
Fun wouldn't usually be described by Melchior Gabor being lifted by a crowd, headed by the elusive Ilse, screaming "Fuck Herr Sonnenstich! Fuck Herr Stiefel! I'm free at last from the parentocracy chains!"  
"How many people here are we going to know?" Martha asked, recognizing Ernst blowing smoke as he sat in Hanschen's lap in the corner of the room. It was an abandoned gymnasium of some kind, with a million suns and planets reflecting on the walls. "I hate people that we know."  
"No, you don't. You love them. You're so full of love. That's what I love about you!" Melitta signed, balancing her empty cosmo on the folding table set up behind them. There was an assortment of drinks to choose from, but Martha didn't know how to make any of them. She didn't even know the ingredients for a rum and coke. "Can we just focus on us for a night?"  
With everything that had happened, it felt, for a moment, that their story had stopped being a love story. It had morphed into a tragedy, a drama, and neither of the characters enjoyed that in the slightest. Drinking to forget was a thing, right? How much would Martha have to drink to forget Moritz?  
Martha wasn't a big drinker, if you couldn't tell, but it wasn't by choice, only lack of opportunity. With such strict parents, she would be slaughtered if she ever dared to come home with the faintest scent of alcohol on her breath. She would be grounded for a week if her braids were undone; imagine the consequence of drinking.  
Tonight, her braids were free. Her mother had kept her hair in two braids for as long as she could remember, and she also faced punishment if the hair found itself free. Maybe it was a metaphor, maybe it was a way for even her mother to exhibit power over her, maybe it was easier to pull. Regardless, she let her natural coils free, threatening to break into an afro. She'd like to cut it short someday, like Ilse. Not just for the freedom, but for the style. It's funny how those things can go hand in hand to women.  
The legality of the drinking was never an issue, as the drinking age in Germany was, thank God, sixteen. This was only for beer and wine, but kids never had an issue finding ways to get drunk. It was the principle of giving up control over herself that Martha struggled with, but at the same time, found tempting. She eyed the drinks on the table, contemplating.  
"You can't get drunk by looking at them," Melitta joked as she began to pour various liquids into a red solo cup. Her nimble fingers worked quickly, sloshing together bottles that Martha couldn't read fast enough."Sex on the Beach," she said when she was finished, presenting her creation. "It's not that strong, but very fruity. You know how I feel about oranges and peaches and stuff. It's one of my favorites and really easy to make."  
Martha sniffed it, and it did smell really nice compared to her other experiences of alcoholic stenches, stale beer and terrifying scotch. She took a sip and her eyes lit up- it truly tasted just like juice. "That's really good," she signed with one hand, taking another, this time longer, sip.  
"Dance with me?" Melitta asked once Martha was close to finishing it, as both girls knew that you couldn't leave an unfinished drink at a party, or anywhere for that matter, and come back to it later. Dancing with the girl that she adored sounded like a dream, especially as the effects of the drink sank in and allowed her mind a little bit of freedom. It was like the peach schnapps was lifting a weight off her shoulders and carrying it for a few hours.  
At the time that the two girls dashed into the crowd, glow sticks and black-lit paint surrounding the bodies around them, Melchior had been placed back on the ground. He stumbled around with a grin, hair stuck to his face with sweat and shirt entirely misplaced over his torso. "Martha?" he signed when he ran into her and Melitta, who were twirling each other around like they were at a middle school dance. "I wouldn't expect to see you here."  
"Neither would I!" she beamed, only seeing her childhood friend for a moment, the bad boy her friends crushed on, and not the rapist. The image of Wendla thrown over her bed in sobs escaped her. "Did you really write that essay?"  
"Yes!" he screamed back, nodding without signing. He was easily the most fluent in ASL of the hearing kids, raised far more by his Deaf parent than his hearing one, and more comfortable signing or writing than speaking. "Every word," he signed. Martha had never seen him so animalistic. His teeth appeared to jut out from a wolfish smile that was laced with such an elated euphoria that she found his entire appearance equal parts unnerving and enviable. "But it wasn't my fault! I'm going to a boarding school next week. Something like a military academy."  
He was going to be eaten alive.  
Martha knew this, but Melitta was the one who commented on it. "You're not going to survive at a place like that!" She spoke with a smile, all good intentions, and Melchior was high or drunk or both enough to take it like that.  
"I know, I'll have to escape!" he cheered. Martha couldn't understand how a boy who has lost everything in his life could be so carefree. It was a model of who she wanted to be, without being careless. It seemed like an impossible line to balance on.  
I'd like to escape too, Martha thought to herself. Escaping seemed to be all she ever did. Melitta said something to him, turned away and didn't sign, and he cheered and disappeared into the mass of color. "What'd you say?"  
"Nothing," Melitta replied, shaking her head. "Just dance with me?"  
Raves, parties, clubs; whatever you wanted to call it, they were so much more bearable when sound was taken out. The bass beat through the room, setting everyone's heartbeats to the same rhythm, which was amplified by the flashing lights, coating the swarms of people in bright greens and purples. The vibrations alone, which were Shakespearean in pattern, sent rushes of dopamine to Martha as she danced against Melitta, pressing against her for support and connection. Skin against skin, fabric against fabric, two souls intertwined as they danced, Martha thought there was nothing more incredible in the world.  
Until Melitta kissed her.  
The whole world stopped and faded away again as their lips met, and it was more addicting to Martha than any powder or pill that anyone in the room could offer her. It was wet, and sticky, and tasted like cranberries and lime. Martha found her hands around Melitta, resting on her lower back. Electricity flooded her senses as she grinned, pressing into the kiss and allowing it to deepen. It was messy, as you would assume two tipsy teeangers kissing at a rave would be, but in the moment, it was everything Martha could ever want.  
Truly, everything slipped from her mind. She had forgotten about the bullet slicing through Moritz's brain. She had forgotten about her father's calloused hands in the dark of night. She had forgotten about Melchior holding down and gagging Wendla.  
Until, of course, she didn't.  
Everything flooded back to her at once, the calm and undeniable exhilaration fading in an instant and being replaced by a not-so gentle reminder that Martha had been through hell.  
The thing about abuse is that the aftereffects don't leave. The triggers don't always even make sense. A look at Melchior didn't affect her at all, but a moment of thinking for too long set off the panic alarms on her mind, shutting down her body.   
The thing about abuse is that you'll remember that you've been abused and hurt beyond repair at the worst and often strangest moments, and usually when you're at your happiest. A voice in your head, one that was in your life for years, will tell you that you're not allowed to be happy without them. As if you ever were happy with them. As if you know what happy is.  
Even if you quiet that voice, even if you can tell it to go away, the moment's gone. It's ruined and you can't get it back. Your abuse has taken more than just years from you, but moments for the rest of your life. Irreplaceable moments. Your memories are irreplaceable, no matter how hard you try.  
The thing about abuse is that it's a masked shadow, lurking behind you and striking whenever you think you're about to smile. It doesn't have a name, only a feeling that strikes fear in your heart. Once it hits you, you're totally fucked.  
Martha figured this all out in the longest moment of her life, lips lifeless against Melitta's. Once her partner realized she wasn't being kissed back, she broke apart. "What's going on?" she tried to sign, but the dizzying lights made it hard to see. Melitta, senses overwhelmed by the sensations around her, led Martha out of the rave, out of the spotlights, and out of sight. It was freezing outside, and of course neither girl had a jacket.  
It was so peaceful.  
The snow didn't seem rushed or terrible, but just gently fell onto sidewalks. You could catch it on your tongue if you tried.  
But you weren't there.  
Melitta was, thank God.  
"Hey, are you okay?" she asked as Martha was transfixed on the specks of white falling to the ground.  
She knew better than to reply 'I'm fine', which never helped either party. "I'm really broken, Melitta."   
"I know that." She bit her lip, searching for the best words to comfort her. "I can't fix you. It's not like that. A relationship can't fix you. But I'd like to help you fix yourself."  
"I- I think I might be past that. I don't think I can ever be fixed. I'm never going to be able to kiss you without thinking too damn much. I'm probably going to break down crying on every date we have for the rest of our lives."  
"And then I'll pull back and ask what's wrong, and then I'll dry your tears. You cannot be too fucked up for me to love you. You're the love of my life, Martha," she said, crying as well as eyeliner streamed against her freckled cheeks. Martha wiped it off, smudging it and making it worse. She let out a soft chuckle at the sight of the utterly fucked up makeup. "Let me take you home. I had one drink an hour and a half ago."  
This was safe, as Melitta was tall and chubby enough (especially on her thighs, streaked with stretch marks) for the one drink in that time to keep her blood alcohol content at less than .01%. She wouldn't be driving, even her bike, if it wasn't safe.  
"Okay. I love you."  
"I love you too."  
Martha, who wrapped her arms around Melitta's back and pressed against her for warmth and support, felt her eyes weigh closed and drifted off, happy to have someone so perfect in her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have one more chapter after this (infinitely SAD) and then an epilogue. We're reaching the end, folks, but I'm not opposed to writing sequels and one-shorts and aus. As always, feedback is adored.  
> (My current Tumblr URL is @betterbrighterbecki, but we all know that can change by tomorrow)


	12. fear took up his trembling hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martha goes to the cemetery when she knows that Melchior will be there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suicide attempt trigger note and same general triggers apply. This is "Those You've Known" for fans of the musical, and for fans of the play, Martha is the "Masked Man".

She left Wendla on the bed, in the hayloft, with the shadow of an all-too-familiar man over her.

She left Moritz in the red snow, without a pulse, rotting away alone.

So when she saw Melchior in the graveyard, hand balanced on a fresh tombstone, she could not find it in her heart to leave.

The second funeral was three weeks prior.

It was almost identical to the first, with the same progression of children, only two were missing. The mother was slightly more gentle than Moritz' father, but still so easily blamed. The planning wasn't thrown together, but carefully worked on to perfection. 

Melchior, of course, wasn't told about it or invited, as he was in some distant school, probably in England. Ilse had been intercepting letters from him, as she refused to let them go to the girl that they were addressed to. To the girl he hurt.

To the girl sitting six feet under.

The doctors wrote on the stone that chlorosis killed her, a deadly lack of iron, but a few broken souls knew better. That Melchior had, in some way, killed her. He did not wield a knife or a rope. He did not need to.

A botched abortion.

Melitta had figured it out first, once Hanschen told them how Wendla had died. "We know that's not what happened," she said, pacing her bedroom. "God, is that really what they're going to try to tell us? That this was some illness? Are they afraid they might actually have to teach us sex education?"

She continued to rant, using less ASL and more angry gestures. That happened a lot with sim-com, where the Hearing person focuses so much on the speaking that they signing falls. It wasn't like Martha didn't already know this tirade by heart, as often as Melitta cursed the sex ed system. She didn't mind and let her girlfriend vent, almost more angry by the cause than saddened by the result. Martha figured that was simply her way of dealing with the loss; trying to turn it into something productive and less painful. The second death in just months. Teenagers shouldn't have to deal with that, especially when they're so avoidable.

Martha was numb. It didn't feel real. She couldn't have lost two of her best friends over the course of one school year. It was all a dream. She expected to wake up. She was so tired of feeling, that no feeling escaped her feeble, tired body. 

She taught herself to only feel love. She aimed it at Melitta. And Thea. And Hanschen. And Ernst. And Anna, and Ilse, Georg, Otto, everyone. They were all she had left. Love for her friends. Isn't that what life's about?

That said, she was wary of loving them. If she lost another, would she regret that love? It took Wendla for her to realize that she wasn't. She didn't regret endless nights painting in the hayloft, talking about the stars and galaxies and that aliens very much existed. Love was not a flaw. It wasn't a fault. Melitta reminded her that every day. Sometimes, even sticky notes with "LOVE IS NOT A FLAW" would appear on her desk and in her lunch. 

She held one in her pocket as she crept through the graveyard. She knew that Melchior's first thought after getting back from the awful boarding school would be to see Moritz. Frau Bergmann thought that Wendla would want to be buried near him, just so she wouldn't be so alone. It was a humid spring night, and a smile threatened Martha's lips as she saw how the roses over Mortiz' head, or what was left of it, bloomed. 

Melchior read the name on the tombstone as it it him that it was not anemia, it was him. He pulled a thin razor from his pocket and trembled, peering up at the night sky and the stars that shone above him. Pale moonlight reflected off the blade as he began to lift it to his throat.

Martha made her presence known, knowing that she had to move slowly. She could not startle him or rush him. She had a chance this time, an honest chance to save someone. Even someone so awful.

"Melchior," she signed, kneeling in front of him.

He jumped back, eyes wide and skin as pale as the moon itself. Purple galaxies swam under his eyes as he shook. He dropped the blade so that he could sign.

If Martha wasn't Deaf, he'd still be holding it.

"What are you doing here?"

"Same as you. I'm here for my friends."

"I don't think Wendla would be very happy for her murderer to call her his friend."

Martha knew she'd have to be careful. "You didn't kill her alone. The system failed her. Her mother, the doctor, her teachers, even me. She asked me what sex was and I didn't tell her."

"Martha, you and I both know that even if you did, it wouldn't have saved her," he said. It was strange to hear him take such responsibility for his action. She didn't know he was capable. "I'm her murderer and I'm not saying that to- to prompt you to deny it! I'm saying it because it's a fact."

There was a difference, whether or not she cared to admit it, whether or not she  _ could _ admit it, rather, between Herr Bessel and Melchior Gabor.

While both names sent chills down her spine, she was only afraid of one. She only believed that one would burn in hell. She believed that the other had potential, need, and the destiny to change and to grow. 

Herr Bessel was forty six years old.

Melchior Gabor was fifteen.

To play the Devil's advocate in his defense (as the devil would be the only one to defend him), Melchior knew what he knew about sex purely from books, from anatomy, from the senseless fucking seen in porn. He didn't understand about the emotion and power that came from such an intimate act; he was fifteen. It took a girl dying for him to learn.

But he was learning.

Doesn't he deserve to learn?

"I'm not going to excuse what you did. Murderer or not, you are a rapist. You're also a child. And not in the way that fifteen year old boys are boys and fifteen year old girls are women, but in the way that we're all just kids. None of us are close to being in the real world. Most of us still have stuffed animals and dolls in our rooms, just hidden away in the back of closets! 

"Melchior, if you let yourself live, I have no doubt that you will never do something like this again. That you will vow to grow into a man that Moritz would be proud to call a friend. You can live with the blame, if only you're willing to change. And you are. If you weren't, you wouldn't be so close to death. If you thought you didn't do anything wrong, you wouldn't have a razor in the mud next to you."

"How can someone like you," he said, "who's been hurt in the way that I hurt others, try to save someone like me? Wendla told me what you've been through- but I'm sure you knew that. Why would you save me?"

Martha struggled to explain what killed her to say. "Because my father doesn't think he's done anything wrong. Not the braids, not the hits, not the rape. He thinks I deserve all of it. You don't. You know Wendla deserves nothing but life. You are standing between life and death. Is a graveyard the best place to continue such a profound debate?"

"Would you prefer to discuss this over coffee? There's a Starbucks down the street," he rolled his eyes, which had sunken deeply into his head. He truly once was the most stunning, ravishingly handsome boy at their school. It was understandable that Thea and Wendla once drooled over him, even while Moritz had Martha's affections.

"No, but you must admit that this atmosphere is deeply disturbing." Even though Martha was too comfortable with death and corpses and funerals, a certain chill ran through her as she remembered what was below the hollow dirt as her feet sunk into it. "I know you won't kill yourself tonight. Now that I've given you so much to think about, the Melchior Gabor I know would journal and think about it. There is a group of people that I know that want to help you change."

"Moritz," he signed, glazed eyes looking past her shoulder. "He's behind you, don't you see?"

Martha turned around. There was nobody there. She turned back and shook her head. "You're delusional."

"He's signing. He's telling me that the afterlife is lonely."

"I'm sure it is. Let's get out of here."

"Martha, he's holding out his hand."

"So am I. Take mine instead."

And he did.

Sometimes you have to save your own life.

And so Martha brought him back to the hayloft, where they slept next to each other. They didn't sleep close, but soundly. The nightmare with the leaky red eyes didn't come, although she half-expected it to, with the monster beside her. Monsters weren't dangerous when they were asleep.

She brought him home to Fanny the next day, accompanying him as they walked along neighborhood sidewalks. It was nice that they all lived so close together.

"Why are you helping me?" he asked, stopping outside the driveway of his house. "Why didn't you just let me die?"

"I love my friends, Melchior," she replied. "And you're my friend. Loving you isn't the right thing to do, but I'm going to do it anyway."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i gotta be honest.... i didn't expect the title to refer to melchior instead of melitta but sometimes you surprise yourself as a writer. i also didn't expect to adhere so closely to canon or write 40k about a ship that doesn't fucking exist but sometimes! you gotta!


	13. making my own way now/epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue. Happy Ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the end bitches!!!

Martha Bessel, comfortable once more with the name she born with, laid on the bed, the mattress familiar to the way her back curved after years of deeply sleeping on it. It was comfortable, one of those fancy memory foam ones. It had taken ages to save up, but the pair of starcrossed lovers wanted only the highest quality mattress for their first apartment. It was a lazy Sunday, a day that her and Melitta had set aside for relaxing and enjoying each other's company. This was normal for her at this point, a habit that she adored. Adore. She adored Melitta, and the small rings that they each wore on the proper finger. Her eyes found themselves smiling up at Melitta, who had just brought in their version of breakfast in bed.

"Two bowls of Fruit Loops," she signed as  she set the tray down. "Poured by yours truly. And one glass of orange juice and another glass of apple juice." Martha grinned, reaching up to give Melitta a kiss. 

"You're the love of my life," Martha mused before picking up her spoon and taking a bite. "And not just because you give me food, although that helps."

ASL was perfect for people who wanted to communicate while they ate. And Martha, now twenty six years old, loved eating. Especially Fruit Loops prepared by her beloved. She ran her fingers through the short hair that barely extended an inch out of her head as she watched her wife talk.

"So Hanschen and Ernst are bringing over a lasagna tonight if we promise to bring that chicken scampi that you make so well next week," Melitta explained, as the two couples that had miraculously made it through high school often cooked for each other. Martha was the real cook out of the two of them, but on Sunday mornings, she never wanted to get out of bed. Thus the tradition.  
It was really nice to have tradition, to have a habit, to wake up every day and know that you are constantly, consistently loved. It was nice to have Melitta.

Don't misinterpret this; she was still a crazy badass. She refused to get a driver's license (and Martha was too afraid to), so she drove everywhere on the same motorcycle she rode for years before. She worked at a local art gallery and was very big on destroying shit in the name of art. Of course, many of her pieces illustrates the effects of overworking children, teen suicide, and the importance of sex education. Martha's favorite collection of hers, however, was the series of candles and caves that all looked, well,  _ yonic _ . She also still frequently attended raves.

Martha had gone to university and graduated with high honors, becoming a licensed therapist for Deaf and Hard of Hearing people. She realized how hard it was for the Deaf community to seek therapy and help; to have someone that spoke your language was key. She was good at her job. She saved lives, marriages, and children.

Both of them demanded to take Sundays off.

As she finished her bowl of cereal, Martha took the yellow pill at the edge of the tray and swallowed it with her apple juice. Every day for ten years. And it kept her alive. It never dulled her creativity, never turned her into a drone. It simply produced the chemicals that her brain refused to make for her after everything it had seen.

Martha kept a journal under her bed where she wrote letters every night before bed, alternating between Wendla and Moritz, about her day. It had twelve years, but the long-term trauma didn't go away. She could only survive through it. She had no other choice.

Her wife was the same way. She would still jump at a glass shattering across the floor and cry. Martha held her. She told her that love was not a flaw.

God knows if you care about their friends in the slightest, or if Martha and Melitta loved them enough to cover for everyone else, but their lives turned out pretty okay too.

Hanschen was a teacher, which nobody saw coming, but everyone considered to be a really nice ending for him. He didn't teach kids how to conform to survive, but how to survive while being their most authentic selves. Ernst worked in the back of a vape shop and taught kids how to sign curse words. That's not quite right, actually. He told kids that they were signing curse words, but actually just taught them how to compliment each other in ASL.

Thea, ever the spunkiest little shit, got a few jobs as an alternative model for indie album covers and Hot Topic ads. She currently had a long-term girlfriend named Greta, but they were looking for a third. In her spare time, she was a 'street-artist' which is the fancy way of saying 'she spray painting naked ladies on buildings and ran'. Like big sister, like little sister.

Anna moved to America and became the first Broadway actress in a wheelchair. Imagine that.

Nobody kept up with Georg or Otto. Occasionally they'd sent out friend requests on Facebook, but Melitta hated Facebook and never replied. They could always try Tumblr.

Melitta also told Ilse that if she left Priapia, she would put one of her paintings on display at her next showing. With some financial assistance from all of her friends, Ilse moved into a small, closet sized apartment and began a new life. One that made her the smallest bit happy, even though she always started every sentence with "Back in Priapia-". Most of those sentences ended with some fantastical, probably untrue story. 

Ilse also made a condition of her own for the deal with Melitta. "Okay, fine, I'll leave this shithole," she had said over a glass of wine in Martha and Melitta's new apartment. "but my painting is going to be Martha. Again. And this time, we're not burning the fucking pictures."

Martha laughed, almost spitting out her second glass of wine, and agreed. It was much more fun when you were over the age of 18 and also engaged (at that point) to one of the beautiful women painting you. She would highly recommend the experience.

And although Melitta was still weary about considering him a friend, even after twelve years, you're probably wondering whatever happened to Melchior Gabor.

He asked Fanny the next day, after returning from the hayloft with Martha, if he could go back to school to graduate with his friends on the condition that he would enroll in therapy and not impregnate anyone. She agreed, reluctantly, but he proved to be honest with his word. Martha couldn't imagine what that first session must have been like until she became a therapist herself. The first session was always so strange; the client would sum up all their trauma, disorders, and sins in a few sentences.

"Nice to meet you. I've decided to go to therapy after my boyfriend of nine years left me for my twin sister because she could hear. I haven't spoken to her sense and I'm also a witch, so you should know that."

"My wife told me I had to come here after I killed her mother's dog."

"I'm a pathological liar and I have a thirteen inch-"

The important thing was that Melchior was growing. Ernst said that he even had a girlfriend, although he didn't want anyone to meet her yet. He was only still in touch with Martha, really, after that night in the graveyard. They met up for coffee every few months. His ASL was a little rusty, but it was never something he could forget.

Just like Wendla.

Just like Moritz.

Just like Martha.

Every once in a while, Martha would look up at the stars. She would remember Wendla's masterpiece of the bruised galaxy, Moritz lying up at the sky, and the way that the moonlight shone onto Melchior's pale skin.

She saw these three in the stars, the sky, and the moon. She never expected her life to turn out as okay as it did. The things that happened to her as a child, they should have killed her, or at the very least, her spirit.

The biggest act of rebellion she could ever have learned from Melitta was how to love herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like maybe I rushed that last four chapters but regardless, this is the best fic I've ever written.  
> Thank you so much for coming along on this journey with me. I love these characters and I really love how my writing style has grown and improved since writing it.  
> I hope I did it all justice, especially how I wrote Melchior in chapters 12 and 13. That's how I personally see the character and I really struggled with the proper way of how to go about it. Obviously, rape is more than a mistake, but Melchior is a child who fucked up. I think, when read in a certain light, Spring Awakening can be a tale of redemption (or at least imply a hope of such a thing at the end) and that's how I wanted to write it.  
> Martha Bessel is my favorite fictional character of all time and as a survivor of abuse, I wanted to capture the long-lasting effects and how it impacts a relationship. Thank you for reading; I know it was really hard at times.  
> I hate to ruin such a serious end note, but if you haven't left Kudos or Comments by now, this is really the best time. I've finished it. Give me your best paragraphs.   
> As always, I'm thrilled to take requests (especially for Marlitta!) Maybe I'll write a sequel to this someday, but right now, I have to focus on non-fiction for class.  
> My current Tumblr URL is @betterbrighterbecki.


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